Tag: 1970

The Shay Model A Ford Replica

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The Shay Model A was the brainchild of A. J. “Art” Shay, a successful businessman and car enthusiast who wanted to bring the classic Model A to a new generation of drivers. Shay believed that the Model A was a timeless classic that deserved to be enjoyed by everyone, regardless of their budget or mechanical expertise.

To create the Shay Model A, Shay partnered with Ford Motor Company and used a mix of new and old components. The chassis and drivetrain were taken from the Ford Pinto, which was a compact car produced by Ford from 1971 to 1980. The Pinto’s chassis and drivetrain were modified to accommodate the body and styling of the classic Model A, which was designed to resemble a miniature version of the larger Ford Model T.

The Shay Model A was available in a variety of different body styles, including roadsters, phaetons, and coupes. The body and styling of the Shay Model A were faithful to the classic Model A, with a rounded grille, curved fenders, and a distinctively retro look. The body was made of fiberglass, which was a lightweight and durable material that was well-suited to the demands of modern driving.

The Shay Model A was powered by a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine that was based on the engine used in the Ford Pinto. The engine produced 88 horsepower and was mated to a four-speed manual transmission. While it was not as powerful as the original Model A’s engine, which produced 40-60 horsepower depending on the year, it was still capable of providing adequate performance for most drivers.

One of the benefits of the Shay Model A was its affordability. It was much less expensive than an original Model A, which had become a sought-after classic car by the late 1970s. The Shay Model A was also easier to maintain and repair than an original Model A, thanks to its modern chassis and drivetrain. Parts were readily available and could be found at most auto parts stores, which made it easier and less expensive to keep the car running properly.

However, the Shay Model A was not without its drawbacks. Some enthusiasts criticized it for not being a true classic car, since it used a mix of old and new components. Others criticized it for not being as reliable or durable as an original Model A, although these concerns were largely unfounded.

Overall, the Shay Model A was an interesting and unique car that was designed to appeal to enthusiasts who wanted a modern interpretation of the classic Model A. While it was not without its flaws, it remains a popular choice among collectors and enthusiasts today.

Source – Shay Owners Club International

2023 Bull Market Pick: 1968–70 AMC AMX – Colin Comer @Hagerty

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American Motors Corp. lost a reported $12.6 million in 1966 and saw a 12 percent decline in sales. One has to imagine that the Big Three never looked bigger to Kenosha, Wisconsin’s favorite automotive manufacturer. Holding less than 4 percent market share, AMC was a distant fourth, an inconsequential player to the suits in Detroit and by all accounts well on its way to extinction.

And then, like a Hollywood movie, in walked AMC’s hero, one Robert Beverley Evans, known for buying into sick companies and nursing them back to health. Evans knew it also wouldn’t hurt to get some AMCs racing and have a bit of “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” mojo working in Kenosha. The result of this influence was to take the upcoming 1968 Javelin and make a unique two-seat personal sports car from it. If nothing else, it would draw young buyers into AMC showrooms again. The AMX (American Motors eXperimental) project got the green light in September 1966, with styling derived from the 1966 Vignale-designed AMX I show car. The production car was designed by Dick Teague, and it was a stunner

Dick Teague–penned proportions make the AMX look more Hot Wheel than production car. Cameron Neveu

To lose the back seat, 12 inches were sliced from the Javelin, giving it a 97-inch wheelbase. The AMX interior was the same as the Javelin SST’s. Engine choices, unlike in the Javelin, were solely V-8s, with 290-, 343-, and 390-cubic-inch displacements, all paired with either a four-speed stick or an automatic. The AMX had the desired effect; here was a two-seat “sports car,” as was the Corvette, but some $2000 cheaper. It was never designed to be a direct competitor, but the public certainly drew parallels, and AMC wasn’t about to complain.

Every AMX received a serialized dash plaque, a brilliant nod to the “exclusivity” of the AMX. AMC advertised this by saying, “We’re even putting the production number on the dash for collectors …” These plaques inexplicably bore no correlation with the VIN of the car. In any event, the new AMX was the shot in the arm that AMC needed.

Of course, nothing is perfect. The trunnion-style front suspension of the 1968 and ’69 AMX was flawed, the ball joint–style setup that arrived with the facelifted ’70 an improvement. The short wheelbase, combined with diabolically quick power steering and a big V-8, proved challenging for many. And, of course, the AMX wasn’t immune to the traditional 1960s scourges of build quality and propensity to rust. Over the 3 years of two-seat AMX production, just 19,134 were built. The best sales year was ’69, the AMX’s first full year, with 8293 rolling out of showrooms.

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Controversial one-of-none four-door 1970 Plymouth Barracuda heads to auction – Daniel Strohl @Hemmings

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Mo’ doors, mo’ problems

No hard proof exists to say that Chrysler intended to build a four-door E-body in the early Seventies. For that matter, no hard proof exists to say that Chrysler didn’t, either. Dave Walden, however, believed in the idea so much that he decided to build a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda with two extra doors more or less from scratch. The resulting car, the only known four-door Barracuda in the world, will soon come up for auction.

According to the blog that Walden kept to document the car’s build, he had already finished a few factory-correct restorations of other muscle-era Mopars and pony cars and was looking to do something different for his next project. In September 2010, he came across a rendering of a bluish-gray four-door Barracuda—Walden didn’t specify whether it was a factory rendering, so it very well may have been one of Aaron Beck’s E-body photochops, which Beck had posted in March of that year—and subsequently decided that the rendering needed to become reality.

Fleshing out the idea

Beck’s vision specified a Barracuda—not a ‘Cuda, which would have been a bridge too far, even for a photochopper accustomed to altering reality—powered by a 383 under a flat hood and fitted with redline tires on steelies with pie-pan caps. (For what it’s worth, he also included a four-door Barracuda woodie station wagon and even a two-door Challenger hearse in his collection of renderings.) More significantly, Beck also decided his what-if four-door Barracuda deserved a pillarless hardtop treatment. Walden decided to take the build in a slightly different direction, envisioning a pillared sedan with a rally hood, Gator Grain vinyl top, and Lemon Twist Yellow paint.

To determine just how the four-door Barracuda could be built, Walden consulted with metal shaper Steve Been. The two determined that, rather than start with an existing E-body shell, they needed to base the car on a four-door car, specifically a 1971-1974 B-body Dodge Coronet or Plymouth Satellite. They found a stripped 1972 Coronet four-door in Clay Kossuth’s Mopar salvage yard and decided to build upon that car’s roof, A-pillars, B-pillars, and partial rockers.

In researching what they’d need to build the car, Walden said they came across a tantalizing bit of hearsay. “[Steve] stumbled across an article written by Roger Johnson,” Walden wrote. “We didn’t know who Roger was and had never spoken with him at that time. In the article, Roger described a red four-door Barracuda parked on a loading dock behind the Highland Park Chrysler Headquarters. This occurred sometime in early fall of 1969.” Johnson, a mailroom employee for Chrysler, couldn’t provide photos, documentation, or any further context for his sighting, but the report boldened Walden, who decided to alter his plans for his four-door Barracuda to reflect Johnson’s recollection as much as possible.

(A brief article in the October 1969 issue of Mechanix Illustrated mistakenly—or perhaps not—reported that the upcoming 1970 Plymouth Barracuda would be available in convertible, two-door hardtop, and four-door hardtop body styles. Walden also pointed to proposed four-door Camaros and Mustangs to defend the idea as not so outlandish.)

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Chevrolet’s Mark IV LS6 454 Made the 1970 Chevelle (and El Camino) SS, Super – Mike McNessor @Hemmings

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More than 50 years on, the 454 is still the big Kahuna—the largest displacement engine ever bolted into a regular production Chevrolet passenger car. It’s lived a long, useful life since its 1970 model-year introduction, powering trucks, boats, generators, race cars of every sort, and more.

Chevrolet will sell you a new 454 today, ready to run, like the 454 HO with 438 hp and 500 lb-ft of torque or the ZZ454 with aluminum heads, rated at 469 hp and 519 lb-ft of torque. These are technically “Gen VI” engines – the original 454 was designated Mark IV. The new engines have four-bolt mains and forged cranks and rods like the best of the originals, but are updated with roller camshafts and one-piece rear main seals. They’re from the same family as the ZZ427 that Hemmings Editor in Chief Terry McGean installed in Hemmings’ 1969 Chevelle SS396 convertible.

*With a domed hood, the LS6 could’ve been topped with either a dual-snorkel or open-element air cleaner.*

The 1970 LS6 454, factory rated at 450 hp, was exclusive to the Chevelle and the El Camino. It not only gave Chevrolet intermediates more power than the Corvette that year, it was the most powerful engine those cars would ever have. Part of the LS6’s charm was that it wasn’t exotic, but made effortless horsepower and torque. The basic recipe included a four-bolt main block; 11.25:1 compression; rectangle-port heads with 2.19-inch intake and 1.88 exhaust valves; an aggressive mechanical cam, shared with other high-performance big-blocks; and a low-rise aluminum intake topped with a 780-cfm Holley. In ’71 the 365-hp LS5 was the top engine offering in the Chevelle, while Corvette gained an LS6 engine option rated at 425 hp and topped with aluminum heads — thus putting Chevrolet’s sports car back on top of the performance lineup. Interestingly, factory literature shows a 425-hp LS6 454 (with iron heads) as an option for the ’71 Chevelle, but none were sold.

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A once-lost Boss 302 with a rare induction system resurfaces 30 years later – Hemmings

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We can assure you of several things relating to Mark Hovander’s 1970 Boss 302 Mustang. One, it has never been sold at an auction. Two, it isn’t the most pristine Boss 302 you’ve ever seen. Three, it has a Ford over-the-counter induction system you may not have seen, and four, it has a remarkable story far beyond its stature as a retail example of Ford’s SCCA Trans-Am-winning homologation effort. Let’s dig in.

When Mark was but a teenager in the late 1970s, he was captivated by Ford Mustangs. When he was 16, his first car was a nice 1965 coupe powered by a pedestrian 289. Mark soon connected with fellow sophomore classmate Pat Gillen, whose older brothers Mike and Ed already owned several high-performance Mustangs, including Boss 302s, a Boss 429, and a Shelby G.T. 500. Through the Gillen brothers, Mark was quickly enamored by these topflight steeds, and set his sights on upgrading from his ’65 as soon as possible. Pat was of the same mind, and the two soon landed summer jobs on an Alaska-bound fishing boat. As far as high school jobs went for kids living in Seattle, these were among the best-paying gigs imaginable—the cost of admission being endless hard work on a boat for three months straight. Says Mark about those days, “One financial benefit of working on a boat in Alaska was that there was no limit to the hours you might have to work per day, and no place to spend the money since we were almost always at sea.”

While looking much like a stock Cross Boss engine might have appeared, had the factory done such a thing, the V-8 beneath has been warmed up with a custom Steve Long camshaft and forged Diamond pistons. Inline Autolite carbs came in two configurations: 875 and 1,425 cfm. The 875-cfm carb was intended for road racing and the 1,425 for “unlimited racing classes such as Formula A and modified drag.” Mark’s carb is an 875, with custom fuel lines bent up by Wicked Fabrication. An initial dyno test indicated that at a conservative 5,500 rpm, Mark’s Cross Boss was up on the stock induction by 25 horsepower, but down on torque by 10 lb-ft.

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WATCH THIS: Trans Am on Super 8 – Mike Austin @Hemmings

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Vintage Racing

Maybe it’s from spending a week at the Scottsdale Auctions and seeing every shade of muscle car just sitting all too pretty, but we’ve got a hankering to see what it was like when these were the main attraction at road courses across America every weekend. Ask, and YouTube will deliver. This vintage Super 8 footage has everything but the soundtrack

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Dodge celebrates Challenger’s 50th birthday with ‘Gold School’ option – Larry Edsall @ClassicCars.com

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Flexing its muscles, Dodge describes the coupe as ’50 years and zero chance of growing up’

Challenger’s 50th birthday

Ford had its Mustang and Mercury its Cougar. Chevrolet had the Camaro and Pontiac the Firebird. American Motors doubled up with the Javelin and AMX. Why, even Plymouth had the Barracuda.

But until 1970, Dodge had nothing to compete in the pony car category that had become so popular with the Baby Boomers who were just getting their driving licenses and were causing a generational shift in the American automotive marketplace.

But with Chrysler redoing its E-body chassis for the 1970 model year, Dodge finally would have its own challenger in the pony car category, a vehicle quite aptly named the Challenger

Challenger’s 50th birthday

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Related – Watch The Last Dodge Challenger SRT Demon Roll Off The Assembly Line

Buyer’s Guide: 1970 Chevrolet El Camino SS – Mike McNessor @Hemmings

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A big-block-powered hybrid hauler examined

El Caminos have taken a beating on the internet over the past 20 years as a lazy punchline for mullet jokes. But we wonder: How many snarky car pundits have ever actually driven a big-block powered El Camino? They’d likely be impressed by the power—even on a short trip to the coffee bar to write that day’s clickbait listicle. When the chassis is in good condition, 1968-’72 El Caminos aren’t a chore to drive, either. They have surprisingly modern road manners.

Not that we’re biased or hold grudges, but just to be clear, in SS trim, an El Camino is not the automotive equivalent of a mullet. (All business in the front and a party in the back! Ha!) It’s actually all business in the back where you can haul stuff (repair parts for cars favored by bloggers, for instance), and a party in the front, where the gas pedal and Mark IV engine coexist in tire-burning harmony.

As of this writing, we counted more than two dozen 1970 El Caminos on Hemmings.com awaiting adoption. Prices ranged from $5,200 for a roller/project with new quarters (and an owner-described “cheap paint job”) up to $55,000 for what appeared to be a show-ready SS 396. Literally something for every budget.

Read the guide here

Buyer’s Guide: 1970 Chevrolet El Camino SS – Mike McNessor @Hemmings

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A big-block-powered hybrid hauler examined

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The Humbler: 1970 GTO’s vacuum-operated exhaust was ahead of its time – Mike Bumbeck @Hagerty

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At the peak of the muscle car era, the 1970 Pontiac GTO offered an innovative driver-controlled exhaust that boosted performance—and ruffled feathers.

The Vacuum Operated Exhaust (VOE), initiated by a stealthy pull on a dash-mounted control, activated flaps on both mufflers that bypassed the stock exhaust routing and opened the gates to twice the sound and improved air flow. In concert with the Pontiac Ram Air induction system, the VOE delivered additional, measurable power. But it was pulled from the options list almost immediately as GM conformed to legal requirements in several states. (That was the official reason anyway. Unofficially, it was doomed by internal politics).