Classified ads are the heartbeat of any old-car hobby publication. The word ads (usually in the back of the book) list cars and trucks for sale, tools and equipment you need, restoration services, real estate . . . almost anything you can think of. Many dealers run multiple ads looking for cars they want to buy. There are events listings and car clubs. In Old Cars Weekly, the "Kenny's Klunker" ads for low-priced cars are always fun to look through. You never know what you'll find there.

Years ago, I had a friend who used to get a magazine with classified ads. He would only read the Buick ads, because he liked Buicks. Then he threw the magazine away as soon as he finished reading the Buick listings. That's what I call a real classified ads lover. He literally wasn't interested in anything else inside the magazine -- just the ads!

Thursday, July 02, 2009 6:26:32 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

BARN FIND. SURVIVOR. DRIVEABLE DREAM. UNTOUCHED ORIGINAL. UNRESTORED. HPOF (Historic Preservation of Original Features)

These are labels the hobby has created for cars that time has been kind to. Everyone talks about such cars. Interest is rising and values are climbing. But are "barn find" cars all that much fun?

I have a '36 Pontiac with mostly original paint and about 75,000 original miles. I had to have the engine rebuilt and we had to fix and upgrade the DuBonnet front suspension. This car can be driven hundreds of miles, but it is slow. It will do maybe 50 tops on the highway and maybe 15 crawling up a steep hill. It has no signal lights. You sweat to death driving it.

A friend has a 1931 automobile that looks totally stock inside and out. Under the hood, it has a 1955 six of a different brand. My friend added EFI to the engine. He installed a 5-speed S-10 transmission. The car also has power steering and a GPS. He let me drive it and it was a hoot. The car will do 70 and can cruise all day at 65. He even has a period-correct accessory fan to cool him off. It has blinkers and seat belts.

I think my friend's car is a lot more fun to drive than my Pontiac -- and a lot safer, too. Barn Finds are great, but most of them belong in the barn -- or maybe in a museum. It is fun to drive old cars all over the place and for me, a car set up nicely for driving, is a lot more fun than a barn find.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009 6:13:03 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

In 1984, when the Bloomington Gold Show was about 10 years old, it started something called the Special Collection. Over 25 years, this portion of the show featured more than 500 of the rarest and fastest Corvettes ever made.

For 2009, Bloomington Gold  organized the Grand Finale Special Collection. Marking a change in focus that has not yet been fully explained, the Special Collection will no longer exist. Something new honoring the "people" involved with Corvettes will start next year. CEO David Burroughs says that as details are locked in, the news of this change will be released through the hobby press.

But this past weekend, the 2009 Grand Finale exhibition marked the zenith of the Special Collection concept. It brought together the most fabulous collection of Corvettes ever seen in one place. They were grouped into three categories: Styling & Dream Cars, Competition and Calloway cars and Personality cars. The parade of these cars through the Pheasant Run Resort late on Saturday afternoon was an unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime sight that will probably never be repeated.

Bloomington Gold continues today with the second annual SURVIVOR show for non-Corvette cars and trucks. If you are near Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, Ill., don't miss this event. It represents the future of the old car hobby as vehicles other than Vettes begin to take part in a certification process that could ultimately affect the collectibility and value of all future collector vehicles. If Bloomington Gold can successfully roll out what it did for Corvette collectors to the hobby in general, the hobby will be much different in future years.

Sunday, June 28, 2009 2:13:35 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

I am looking for some quick help on answering this question. Who are the 10 people active today who exert the most influence on the sport of hot rodding?

I have received opinions from about a dozen "experts" on this question. Their answers were all over the ballpark, but there was some degree of concensus.

Now, I know that us "everyday folks" sometimes have different views on these things. Here's your chance to express your views. Just list the 10.

Remember. They should be people who exert the greatest influence TODAY. I am not looking for the all-time greats and I am not looking for people who are still alive who had great influence in the past. I am looking for 2009's "movers and shakers" in hot rodding.

Let's hear what you have to say.

Gunner

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 5:22:31 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

To keep up with the old car hobby at this time of year, you have to travel lkie crazy. But this year, with income down and costs up, I decided to enjoy the old car hobby while sticking closer to home. This past weekend, I skipped the annual British Car Field Days in Sussex, Wis. and drove "only" 90 miles to the Fond du Lac Optimist Car Show. Traveling with Colette and Shane Hanke of Waupaca, we brought two of the five British cars that made it to the show. We stopped for a Father's Day breakfast in Weyauwega, Wis. (where I nearly got nibbled to death by the proverbial black sheep) and after sorting out Shane's Triumph a little, we continued on to Fond du Lac. We took the lake road in and ran right past the shops of old-school hot rodder "Cowboy Bob" Norris (Grade A Welding) and Classic Chevy lover Mike Freund (Classics Plus Ltd.) I have relatives in Fond du Lac, but I had never been aware of the Lakeside Park where the show was held. It was a cool place and it was even cooler to see it loaded with old cars. The first person we ran into was Denise "GTO Lady" Clumpner who was at the show with her family. Though we stuck relatively close to home, the show turned out to have many nice cars and some interesting automotive history. Bob Novacs, of the FDL Historical Society, showed up with a home-built car that was fabricated in the FDL High School automotive shop in 1962. Built from pieces of many 1930s-1950s cars, the "Old Goat" cost just a couple of hundred dollars to build and has lasted quite a few years in good shape. We will be researching this unique creation and welcome any input about the car.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:39:23 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

This may be a good year to get the "fixing" done on that car that's been sitting in the back of your garage. With the sluggish economy having a negative influence on ordinary spending, I'm told that a lot of repair shops and body shops are looking for work to keep them busy. The economy does not seem to be hurting the old car hobby as much as it is affecting other segments, so this might be the perfect time to get that long-sitting car done. You might even find shops that are willing to do work at an attractive price and another nice thing is that your old car is likely to get priority treatment, instead of being done as a "spare time" job that just sits in the corner most of the time. A third factor to thimk about is that the economy is likely to bounce back late this year or early in 2010. So, if you want to get a car fixed to resell it, it may turn out that this is the perfect time. You'll be able to get the work done on the low side and sell the finished car when the market is turning back up again. All in all, this seems like a good year to fix an old car up.

Sunday, June 14, 2009 5:11:45 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

In the last issue of Old Cars Weekly we related the incredible story of a rare 1972 Corvette ZR1 "racing" car that had been stored away since the day it was new and recently changed hands with just 290 miles on the speedometer. The car is one of 20 ZR1s made in 1972 and is very unique because of its high-performance, small-block V-8. Guy Carpenter of Marshfield, Wis., bought the car to preserve it and he recently sold it to former Corvette designer Al Wagner, who plans to continue preserving the vehicle. The car was exercised over thears by around the block drives, but only after the tires were changed and the upholstery and carpets were covered to protect them. So it is virtually a new car in most respects

The 37-year-old car is making its first real public debut this weekend at a National Corvette Restorers Society regional meet in Delafield, Wis., June 11-13. Then it will bow to the Corvette world at Bloomington Gold 2009, June 24-27.

Ayone lucky enough to live near Milwaukee can see the car this week. It is truly an amazing machine.

Friday, June 12, 2009 5:05:04 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

My son and I are spending long hours stripping paint off old motorcycle parts with Eastwood's Dekote stripper. I think I mentioned earlier that we bought seven little, early '60s Hondas in "basket case" condition.

When I see a fender or tank with old paint or old Bondo, I tell my son use the stripper to take the paint off and then wire brush the Bondo off. He says, "But dad, we have another fender and tank on the red bike over there; we can just replace those junky ones with the red ones."

Not in my book. I don't replace something I can fix with just a little extra work. I paid for seven bikes. One was just a frame. So there are six to build, but only five have the right engine. So my goal is to make FIVE good bikes out of the one frame and the six complete bikes. That will give us one bike for me, one for my son Jesse and three to hopefully sell and get our money back (or even make a little).

If I save every part, I can build five bikes. If I toss parts that need a little work, I can only build four bikes. That extra bike will pay for a lot of the parts we need.

We may have different perspectives, but I'm financing this project. It's true that Jesse is going to "work off" one bike and the parts he needs, but I still bought the bikes. So I think my "old-fashioned" way is going to win.

What do you think?

Thursday, June 11, 2009 11:59:15 PM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [1]

A few weeks ago I bought a new vehicle. Instead of purchasing an owner's manual and shop manual for it, I saw an advertisement for a CD that has both of those publications, plus sales catalogs, magazine articles, ads and even an entire parts manual. For $15 or so, the CD seems to have everything. However, it is just not as easy to find a particular tidbit of information as it is with a old-fashioned printed manual. I think the CD will come in handy, but I still want to find original manuals that only require flipping a few pages to be just where you want to be.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 4:49:06 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]

If you're like me, sometimes you buy something for your hobby shop and don't use it for a few months or even a year. Awhile ago -- make that a long time ago -- I stopped at the Eastwood Company (www.eastwood.com) in Pottstown, Pa., and I left with a container of pinkish-purplish stuff called Dekote. The man at Eastwood said it would take off paint pretty good.

Well this pinkish purplish stuff sat on the shelf for months. This is partly because I procrastinate a lot and partly because it is hard to do a lot of projects during the winter, here in Wisconsin. So, in any case, I never had paint to strip until this week.

All of a sudden I have a lot of parts that need paint stripped off them. This is because my son and I bought seven early-1960s Honda "Baby Dream" motorcycles last week. Seven basket cases that is. We hope to get four or five good bikes out of this. But all seven need to be stripped of their old paint.

So we finally opened the container of Dekote and (though this may be hard to believe) it really works. After just a few nights in the shop, we have nearly all of the paint off the first two old bikes. And one of them had four coats of paint on it. Wow! We think we can take paint off of four bikes with just the one container. That makes the cost of total paint removal about $11 per bike. Not bad!

Not to mention that the Dekote probably would have worked even better a year ago! 

Sunday, June 07, 2009 4:22:09 AM (GMT Daylight Time, UTC+01:00)    Comments [0]