Arlen Vanke. Photo by Thomas A. DeMauro. For all his drag racing victories, most behind the wheel of a Pontiac or a Plymouth in the Stock, Super Stock and later, Pro Stock classes, “Akron” Arlen Vank...
Vic Edelbrock Jr. in 2013. Photo by Kurt Ernst. Vic Edelbrock Jr., for more than 50 years the head of the company that bears his name, died last week after complications from a cold. He was 80. The s...
Tom Tjaarda with the Fiat 124 Spider. Image from the Hemmings archives. Over a career that spanned seven decades, Tom Tjaarda designed, or at least influenced the design of, over 84 vehicles. Trained...
Peter Fontana’s Deuce coupe at The Race of Gentlemen. Images by the author. There probably has not been a time, at least in living memory, when the 1932 Ford was anything less than an icon of motorin...
Images courtesy Internet Movie Car Database. With the news that actor Roger Moore died earlier today in Switzerland at 89, we can think of no better way to memorialize him than to consider his best B...
Robert M. Pirsig in 2005. Photo by Ian Glendinning. On the surface, it was a book about a father and son’s journey by motorcycle from Minnesota to Northern California, but on a deeper level, it intro...
Photos courtesy National Motorcycle Museum. John Parham lost a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis on April 20th. In addition to starting J&P Cycles, one of the largest retailers in the aftermarket m...
Al Amatuzio didn’t invent synthetic oil, but his AMSOIL product was reportedly the first such lubricant to meet the American Petroleum Institute’s (API) service requirements for motor vehicles, in 19...
Photo courtesy @RobertArd00 on Twitter. Two-time Busch Grand National champion, race team owner and short-track legend Sam Ard died earlier this month at the age of 78. A popular driver in the NASCAR...
Photo courtesy @RobertArd00 on Twitter. Two-time Busch Grand National champion, race team owner and short-track legend Sam Ard died earlier this month at the age of 78. A popular driver in the NASCAR...
Pete Hamilton with his Petty Enterprises Plymouth Superbird prior to the start of the 1970 Daytona 500. Photo by Skeensss. Pete Hamilton, winner of the 1970 Daytona 500, died earlier this week at the...
Covercraft Industries founder Robert Lichtmann died February 20, just two days prior to his 92nd birthday. Lichtmann, who had been retired from the business since 2003, graduated from the Illinois In...
Jean Argetsinger with Sir Jackie Stewart. Photo courtesy IMRRC. Jean Argetsinger, a towering figure in early American road racing who did a lot to create the International Motor Racing Research Cente...
Jack Griffith at Amelia Island, circa 2010. Photo by Jim Cowen, courtesy Automodello. If fortune favors the bold, Andrew “Jack” Griffith must have been among the luckiest men in America. After servin...
Pete Chapouris. Image courtesy of SoCal Speed Shop. Who knows how life might have turned out for Pete Chapouris had his chopped and flamed ’34 Ford coupe not graced the cover of the November 1973 iss...
Photo courtesy Nick Arias Jr. Racing Components. Even before a high school aptitude test confirmed it, Nick Arias Jr. knew that his future would involve the “industrial arts.” Born to a railroad mach...
Photo by the author. Though the collector car hobby – and Hemmings, by extension – focuses almost exclusively on older motor vehicles, that doesn’t mean it is or we are bereft of news to report. In f...
Per Gillbrand at the Swedish Radio concert hall Berwaldhallen, Stockholm, November 2014; photo courtesy of Claes Johansson, Klassiker magazine We learned this week of the November 30 death of automot...
Tony Adamowicz (back row, second from left) at a 2010 Trans Am driver reunion at the Petersen Museum. Photo by Jeff Koch. He was one of the most accomplished American road racers of the last generati...
We all know that work on electric cars and alternative-fuel vehicles really ramped up during the Seventies and early Eighties as a response to the gas crises, but one of the largest investments in hy...
Brock Yates with his Pebble Beach class-winning Eliminator. Photo courtesy Brock Yates, Jr. Brock Yates was never afraid of a fight. In a journalism career that stretched across six decades (includin...
Photo via Detroit Free Press ; brochure image via lov2xlr8.no. If success has many fathers, then Colin Neale had many children. As a longtime designer for both Ford and Chrysler and a close associate...
Jeff Teague and his AMX/4 rendering. Like any of us, Jeff Teague could have become anything he wanted, but with a father as passionate about cars – particularly older cars and auto design – as legend...
Chris Amon (R) with Jim Clark at Indianapolis in 1967. Photo courtesy Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Best remembered for his win in the Ford GT40 Mk IIA with co-driver Bruce McLaren in the 1966 24 Hour...
Photo courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum. Legendary drag racer, hot rodder, and land-speed racer Art Chrisman – whose dragster set the pattern for many other quarter-mile conquerors and who racked u...