The lead photo on Yahoo! News the other day showed a vintage yellow Corvette with red racing stripes parked in front of a gas pump in San Bernadino, Calif. The sign behind the car was advertising $4.79 a gallon high-test gas!!!

Now, I know that back in the '60s, when gas was 40 cents a gallon, I made $1.20  an hour, so I earned 3 gallons per hour. When I stopped getting paychecks, gas was $2.50 a gallon and I earned $20 an hour, so I made 8 gallons per hour.

As you can see, the price of gas is really in line with price and wage inflation. The problem is every company is raising the price of everything else - and not by pennies. In the past two weeks a bag of Famous Amos cookies at our Wal Mart went from $2.50 to $2.75. That's huge!

Here's one way to fight without hurting yourself. Continue buying gas, but do not buy anything else at the gas station or convenience store. No soda, no coffee, no butts, no donuts - nothing!  Don't give up the other things - just think more about your purchases and buy what you need at the "big box" department stores, discounters or supermarkets, where you will still save a bit on each item. I guarantee, you'll save enough money to offset the higher gas prices.

Yesterday I saw an ad in a hobby magazine trying to sell an "authentic" copy of a rare sports car. The ad said that it was an "exact" reproduction of the original. It also mentioned that the reproduction had a carbon fiber body. The original did not have a carbon fiber body. Does anyone out there see anything wrong with this description?

As new enthusiasts enter the hobby and as hot rods and Resto-Mods gain more acceptance, the meanings of terms like "exact," "original," "authentic" and "factory" are really getting more and more blurred.

I don't think that true collectors appreciate this.

An original car is one that looks like it did the day it was built, has all of its factory made parts, is finished with factory colors (using the same type of paint counts, too), has the engine it left the factory with and has the closest-to-original-equipment-available reproductions of items that can't last forever, such as tires, belts and hose clamps.

Sorry. But if a car is a "little" more original than it is modified, that just doesn't work! And the car that is painted in nitrous cellulose lacquer still gets more "originality" points than the car done in basecoat/clearcoat.

I get a laugh out of some of the listings on eBay. There are some sellers offering cheap, period accessories as if they were original factory parts. I have seen chrome headlight visors, generic rearview mirrors,old "curb feelers" and other such items presented as if they were designed and manufactured for a specific car. Are there buyers who really get fooled by the yokels who think all's it takes to be a parts vendor is to go to a Pep Boys' liquidation sale? The listings never mention that these parts are "one-size-fits-all" aftermarket cheapies that probably sat on the shelf for years because they were "junk" from Day 1. eBay has some good stuff, too, but you really got to be careful.    

I grew up on the East Coast, where spring is well underway by the middle part of March. Thirty years ago, I moved to the Upper Midwest. The first year I moved here, I had planned to go to a show back home in New York City the first week in April. but before I could pack up my family and scoot, we got dumped on . . . a couple of feet of snow! The company Suburban got buried up to its door handles.

That was 1978 and every year since then, I've heard someone around Iola say, "I like living in the Midwest where we have spring!" Well, I'll tell you, that's perfectly true. We had spring last week. The week before that we still had four feet of snow. This week, it hit 70. That means it will be 90 next week. Summer has arrived.

For old car nuts in the Upper Midwest, this time of year is just a bit frustrating. Since we already had nice weather, we all have our old cars out and ready to go. But show promoters have learned it doesn't pay to schedule events for this time of year, when snow is still a real possibility. So, we have to wait until the Spring Jefferson Show on April 26-67 (www.madisonclassics.com) before we really have a good-size swap meet to visit.

That's Spring in the Upper Midwest.

What would really be amazing is if you could take your muscle car into a shop and have it tuned up by one of the legendary muscle car mechanics of the '60s. Well, guess what? You can!

Don Swiatek was considered "The Man" by Chicago Chevy enthusiasts back in the '60s. In that era, Don was the High-Performance Manager at N-I-C-Backwards "K"-E-Y Chevrolet in Chicago. He was about equally adept at tricking out a '55 Chevy Two-ten Del Ray coupe for drag racing or making a 427 big-block Biscayne run strong in the Stoplight Grand Prix.

Now, Don is back at Nickey Chicago, a revival of the old muscle dealership. It was a few years ado that enthusiast Steve Bimbi found out the rights to the legendary Nickey name were for sale. Steve was not only smart enough to grab the backwards-"K" logo, he also hired Don Swiatek back to work for him.

Find out more about Nickey Chicago at www.nickeychicago.net. Or call (630) 561-1215 and talk to "The Man." The new Nickey is in St. Charles, Ill., and it's becoming "Supercar Headquarters" for the Midwest.

Now that it's (finally) getting nice up here, I've been putting an hour or two each day cleaning "Gunner's Garage." It is stuffed with cars right to the door - 12 of them. One belongs to one of my twin granddaughters. The rest are mine. If I ever want to move around comfotably inside, I gotta sell something. Not the '36 Poncho or the '53 Catalina. Those are keepers. And my '89 Caprice 9C1 police car is a keeper, too. I just had the brakes on the '48 Streamliner sedan fixed at Zerp to 60 garage (www.zeroto60garage.com) so I might as well get at least a summer's worth of driving out of it. The '57 Buick Century has only moved two or three tiimes since I bought it six years ago, but aahhh that rumble! It's not for sale either. No one needs an MG TD and an MG TF -- but if you have both, you might as well have a TC, too, right? I really don't need the '91 Lincoln Town Car, but no one else wants it. The same goes more or less for the '94 Sunbird convertible. I'd probably lose money selling either of those cars and they're too nice to take a loss on. That leaves the MG Magnette and the 2003 Ranger. Can't sell the Magnette, because it's all apart. And I just bought the Ranger, so I'm not going to sell it.

Guess I can't sell anything.

Oh well! Might be a good year to buy another building. Then I can store some cars there and have the room I need. Until the MG TC arrives, that is!

So much for cleaning garages.

At the Chevy Vettefest I was able to take a "barometer reading" on the Corvette hobby right now. I spoke with D & M Corvette Specialties, Pro Team, Corvette Mike, An American Classic and Valley Corvette. What the experts told me was that "regular use" Corvette sales are very slow and prices on these cars have leveled. When I asked for a definition of "regular use," I was told it applied to most (not all) 1973 and later Vettes.

The experts said that the Shark-style C3s are getting the most attention right now. They thought this was because these cars fit the "baby boomer" market. The people who were too young to buy them in the '70s, but dreamed about it, can now afford their dream. I think there's also another reason. Car collecting really boomed in the '70s, when many of these cars were near-new, and since everyone thought of 'Vettes as one of the top collector cars, I think people put them away, instead of selling them used. So, that makes availability high.

The experts were careful to point out that rare and desirable Vettes of all eras will "always have a buyer waiting." If you have a rare C-3, that's probably a good place to be right now. An early '70s LT-1 or LS6 will sell quickly and bring top dollar.

Who says collector cars aretoo expensive. As of late, I have been seeing a lot of very nice 1940s cars in the $15,000 range. A sharop-looking 1940 Buick Century Touring Sedan with dual sidemounts sold for $15,750 at a recent auction. Nice car and legitimate sale. Then a dealer let a 1940 Pontiac coupe go for $14,000. Same deal - a very nice cars. Last week, well-known dealer Leo Gephart had a 1940 LaSalle in his ad in Old Cars Weekly. The asking price was $15,750. Cars of the 1940s are very nice, high-quality, well-put-together machines that can keep up with modern traffic. The men who bought the '40 Pontiac said they were looking for a muscle car, but they just couldn't pass up such a great car at such a reasonable price. They had no idea how much the Pontiac was worth, but I heard one say, "It's gotta be worth $14,000." We couldn't agree more. If you want to buy a car this year, check out the 1940s models. You won't be sorry.

One of the more interesting displays at Chevy Vettefest last week was a large collection of memorabilia related to a particular 1970 LS6 Chevelle convertible that driver Dave Allen drag raced. The car was built by Truppi-Kling Competition and sponsored by Briggs Chevrolet, of South Amboy, N.J. The racing car was a dark blue Chevelle with a white cpnvertible top. A convertible was used because it weighed a few more pounds than the Chevelle coupe and placed the car in a different class than other Chevelles. This car had anumber of big wins all over the country and was a national record holder in the SS/EA class with an 11.33-second run. I am currently looking for any and all information about this car for a proposed featutre article.

When Al Wagner was a kid, he knew that he wanted to be a Corvette designer. Al had almost become a West Point Cadet, but he wound up taking engineering at Rochester University. One day he saw a job with the GM foundry in North Tonawanda, N.Y., posted on the school's bulletin board. Interviews were in a few minutes. He had no time to change his jeans, lumberjack shirt and knapsack for a suit, tie and attache case. But he was passionate about working for GM, so he went to the interview "as is." Al was immediately called into a room by the Director of Personal. He started to apologize for the way he was dressed. "Are you kidding son?" said the man. "I picked you because of the way you're dressed - did you ever see anyone with a suit working in a foundry?" Al got the job, went to work for GM and  ultimately worked his way up to becoming a Corvette design engineer. Later, he left GM and went to work as Director of New Product Development at Harley-Davidson. Today, Al runs a mostly-Corvette collector car restoration and sales business in Delafield, Wis.

An American Classic (www.AnAmericanClassic.com) is Al's latest dream. In fact, you could say, "An American Classic is an American dream." Al has several indepent mechanics who help him put the cars in top shape in case someone dreams of owning a nice classic. He specializes in "Shark" type LT-1 'Vettes, but stocks a bit of everything. His business is built on honesty, integrity and the type of passion that got him his first job with GM so many years ago. I really enjoyed visiting Al this past Monday! 

I'm still at the Chevy Vettefest in Rosemont, Illinois and I'm looking at the mini version of the "giant gerbil cage" I wrote about a few weeks ago from Atlantic City. The giant version was a climate-controlled glass enclose for real cars and bikes made by Motor Inn. The "midget gerbil cage" is a classy-looking glass enclosure for your 1:24-scale model cars. The "Cruizes" case is motorized so that you can set the wheels of the model turning as you display it. It holds two cars that are parked at a street lamp or traffic light (which you also get) and the models sit on a foam pad. Little wheels come up through adjustable slots and spin the models' wheels. It's really cool. The case includes both battery and plug-in power, so you can exhibit the models at home or during a car show (like Chevy Vettefest). To find out more visit www.stagesdisplays.com