Patina isn’t a new thing—and we don’t mean that as a bad pun. For the past several years there has been a growing interest in the well-worn warmth of aesthetically neglected finishes. From the rise of the rat rods, to retro rods pretending to be something they aren’t, there is a big bubble of shabby chic rods on the scene. To be honest, it bothers us.

Early on in Project Nova’s tenure with PHR, we noticed that any time we put a jack under any of the X-body’s four corners we were met with lots of creaking sounds, tweaked doorjambs, and the three remaining tires preferring to remain glued resolutely to the ground. Throughout our suspension upgrades at Classic Performance Products, we always knew that—unless we did something—the effectiveness of those mods would be tempered by a flaccid chassis to produce less than spectacular results. What we knew all along was that some very simple, cost-effective chassis stiffening moves can produce performance gains on par with more expensive mods like we’d already done. It’s one of those things seldom spoken about when lavish groupings of parts are packaged together, but that suspension experts readily admit has a huge impact on vehicle performance.

Ford Coyote:

After a while, sometimes the old ride just doesn’t have the same appeal that she used to. When the initial love affair subsides, the eye starts wandering and you want something new—but does that mean you necessarily have to give up on old Sally? Maybe the ol’ girl just needs a makeover. We’ve been there with Project Olds, our ’65 Cutlass project car. At first, the novelty of ripping up the autocross in a machine with a distinctly geriatric vibe was great fun, but eventually our enthusiasm waned. “It looked like a grandma car with bigger wheels,” car owner and PHR photographer extraordinaire Robert McGaffin opines. “Over the course of the build, the performance of the car got ramped up big time. It’s been on several road courses, the autocross, and driven across the country. The Cutlass needed a more aggressive look to match its performance, so it was time to give it a makeover.”

On day one of our Weekend Makeover, we wrapped up the lettering and exterior on our ’60 Starliner. For day two, the mission was to get it NASCAR low and take care of handling ills. The engine was tired, but not nearly as worn-out as the suspension. The ’Liner was sketchy at all speeds to say the least, and the squashy springs had us feeling like we might drag the door handles if we dared even a mildly aggressive turn. We don’t mind saving the bodywork for later, but we can’t hold our heads up proudly and cruise a Starliner that looks like an old NASCAR racer if it still drives like a derelict.

You know the drill. Rich dude buys a muscle car, drops it off at a big-name shop, then shows up a year later with an armored truck full of cash. In the world of high-end Pro Touring, these are the hands-on guys. More casual enthusiasts pay the shop to find their project cars for them. Even if that rubs the do-it-yourselfer in you the wrong way, you can’t criticize these cars as stagnant showcases of billet and chrome anymore. The filthy rich now have hot shoe drivers on retainer to pilot their cars for them around the autocross at blistering speeds. That’s just the way it goes, homie, so get over it. Granted that the high-end of the Pro Touring spectrum is getting ridiculously expensive, but ultimately, stuffing a modern powertrain and suspension into old-school sheetmetal is still freakin’ cool. Even so, does this mean that the average working stiff can no longer build a nice g-Machine for a reasonable sum of money? Not if Brent Perez and his ’70 Challenger have anything to say about it.

Do you know why it is that you like the cars you like? For most of us blessed (or cursed) with the gearhead hot rodder gene, it goes back to flashes in our youth when our opinions were still forming about what constituted “cool.” When it comes to cars, there’s always something that the “right one” says to you that the others don’t. Maybe it’s the shape, the flow of the body lines, the sound, or the power—or maybe there was just one particular car that stuck in your mind as the embodiment of awesome.

Pack up your bags, boys, we’re heading to the Middle East. Don’t forget the camera, because one night out on the town will get you a year’s worth of sizzling street racing footage. YouTube is standing by for upload. The rest of the Western world is free to have its own opinion about this region of the globe, but we car guys know what’s up. Mix big oil money, testosterone, prohibitions on alcohol, and vast stretches of open road, and the end result is more predictable than Hollywood’s latest romantic comedy. We’re talking speed, and lots of it, with Corvette ZR1s and Vipers duking it out against Ferraris and AMG Mercedes-Benzes. Why yes, regardless of creed or color, hot rodders from around the world all speak the same language, and it sounds a lot like squealing tires and uncorked motors wailing at WOT.

“Green” Car Care Products

We’re big fans of fabrication; it truly is the hot rodder’s ultimate artistic expression. Mastery means you can make whatever you want, limited only by your imagination. After all, you don’t take on an ambitious project car like our own Max Effort ’67 Cougar without embracing the fact that you’ll be building a lot of stuff from scratch.

We’re always getting asked by guys how they can get their cars in the magazine, and there is no simple answer to that. There is no hard and fast rule for gauging ingenuity, value, or performance—it’s a combination of all, plus a big dose of cool factor. Even with all the stars aligned, we might not feature a car due to a scheduling conflict, or the simple fact that we just d on’t know about it. Fortunately for us, we did stumble upon Richard Trujillo’s very cool, very capable, and very affordable ’69 Mustang coupe, and it struck a sympathetic chord with us.

There are many things that separate an average muscle machine from the standout car that makes people turn their head and take notice. The overall paint finish ranks right up at the top of what counts when it comes to the visual statement that speaks loudest. No matter how worthy your machine might be in other qualities, it is the paintwork that makes the first impression, whether rolling down the boulevard, or under scrutiny at the show field. In fact, often the key feature a car is judged by is the appearance of the paint. How often is a car described disparagingly as a 20-footer, meaning that it might look good from 20 feet away, but fails under close scrutiny?

Here’s a bit of obscure trivia for you: all fourth-gen (’75-up) V-8 Novas were equipped with GM’s perfectly adequate 8.5-inch 10-bolt—except the ’76 305 V-8 model. Those cars got the same frail 7.5-inch rearend found in the six-cylinder cars. And guess what our EcoNova project car was originally?

Going through the ordeal of a full restoration is one of those things you’d probably never tackle if you knew up front exactly how much angst you were going to have to go through. Enigmatically, it’s also one of those experiences you would never trade for anything in the world. There’s nothing quite like the satisfaction of bringing a car back from the dead to become an object coveted by everyone—even non-car people. The ’68 Nova restored in this issue is that “warm fuzzy” for me.

The single most important characteristic of a cylinder head is to move a large mass of air. The most important features of cylinder head design, which determine the mass of airflow delivered, are the shape and size of the runners, and the most effective shape is a straight shot down with a big valve opening. It comes as no surprise then that the almighty Chrysler Hemi is one of the most effective cylinder head designs when it comes to moving a boatload of air and fuel into an engine.

Gentlemen, we have ourselves a 9-second car. Despite our best efforts to exercise professionalism and composure during what should be a triumphant moment, all we can say is that it’s about freakin’ time. Way back in the Dec. ’10 issue, we boldly proclaimed that our street/strip ’93 Mustang project car would be running 9s much sooner than anyone expected. Considering that it ripped a 10.54-at-138-mph pass on its maiden trip down the track, there was good reason for our optimism. As the incessant and increasingly frustrating track excursions unfolded, however, we quickly realized that our assessment was a bit premature. With time and money always at a premium, finding those last few hundredths of a second in e.t. proved excruciatingly difficult. While it’s somewhat embarrassing that it took so long to hit the single digits, we’re not making any apologies. That’s because we can now load up the converter to 4,000 rpm, pop the transbrake, and bust off a 9-second pass at will on any given test-and-tune night.

Got a car you want the world to see?

Our supersized 427-cube small-block (See “The Anti LS,” PHR Oct. and Nov. ’11) seemed just right for our ’75 Chevelle Laguna project car—big cubes and big power in a traditional small-block package. The amply proportioned Chevy NASCAR tribute just begged for the big torque and power that the large Dart SHP based small-block could deliver. With a dyno-tested 627 hp and 561 lb-ft of torque on hand, this engine combination had the muscle to make our Chevrolet fly. Though the major infusion of cubic inches had us anxious to hit the streets, driving it just didn’t seem to meet the expectations. It just failed to hit as hard as the raw engine dyno numbers would have suggested. We seemed short on power, and our mission was to find it.

For the first time in 10 years, Carlisle Events is expanding within the Keystone State, adding the Bloomsburg Nationals powered by Carlisle Events to its schedule. The event, formerly known as the Bloomsburg Annual Rod and Custom Cruise-In, will take place Friday through Sunday, August 10-12 at the Bloomsburg Fairgrounds in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. The fairgrounds, located at 620 West Third St. in Bloomsburg - Columbia County, less than five miles from exit 232 and Interstate 80 is comprised of 227 acres of land. On-site amenities include 24-hour security, camping, exhibit buildings and in 2011, saw nearly 7,500 attendees come to town for the event.

Come on ladies, let’s keep it real, shall we? Ask any woman what qualities she values in a man, and aside from the expected mushy-mushy stuff, the word psychic never makes the list. Interestingly, many of them expect their better halves to guess what they’re thinking, because as we all know, that’s a heck of a lot more fun than just telling someone how you feel. It’s certainly a peculiar way of conducting business, but dudes aren’t that much better in their communication skills. For instance, hot rodders have traditionally labeled automatic transmissions as unfit for autocross and road racing duty. They cite mushy torque converters, unsolicited upshifts, and a lack of engine braking as common gripes. Well, genius, did you ever stop to think how on earth an automatic transmission is supposed to guess what you want unless you tell it what to do? Mark Bowler of Bowler Performance Transmissions is on a mission to dispel these ugly myths, and he built an entire car just to prove the point. In doing so, he ended up with a two-ton terror of a ’70 Torino that packs a 572hp small-block, and routinely sticks it to manually shifted g-Machines on the autocross.

Trying to describe what makes a car look cool is a little like trying to capture lightning in a bottle. With such a variety of tastes and build styles out there, you’d think there wouldn’t be a lot in common between them, but there are a few nearly universal traits that will cause any car to fall short in the visual appeal department.

Elsewhere in this issue we’ve explored all the myriad ways in which you can ruin a car’s look by failing to consider all the elements that have come together to create a complementary look. One of the key elements is wheel and tire fitment—not just how much of either you have, but where it’s positioned under the car.

Jim Gollwitzer wasn’t even a gleam in his father’s eye when his ’64 Chevelle was born in the heat of the Cold War era. Young Jim didn’t know it when he was just a wee lad but he was destined for a lifelong enlistment in the army of Chevelle fans. He got his draft papers the day his dad came home with a brand-new ’72 Chevelle. By his 14th birthday he was regularly wrenching on the Chevy, and by 16 he proclaimed the car as his own. He hasn’t stopped fighting to keep alive the old promise of a chicken in every pot and a Chevelle in every driveway.

Racing is typically an incremental game, a pursuit of chipping away at the numbers in search of constant improvement. Be it the numbers on the dragstrip, around a circuit, or the very power numbers produced by an engine, keeping pace of this constant raising of the bar is what creates winners. In our annual engine-building competition, the AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge, the competition likewise is fierce, and innovation is constant, continually demanding advancements in power output to stay in the game. The 435ci Ford Cleveland featured here was built by the School of Automotive Machinists (SAM), and appeared in its first incarnation for the 2006 event. Though it finished well up the pack in the subsequent years, the basic engine combination has been built again and again in a constant game of refinement and development, looking for an outright victory. The AMSOIL Engine Masters Challenge finally rewarded the SAM team in 2011 with an all-out victory in the Street category.