Saturday morning at the speedway . . .
Read MoreIn 1955, Chrysler introduced its legendary 300. Named for the 300 hp produced by its 331 CID Hemi V8 under the hood, the 300 quickly began winning on the NASCAR tracks. A total of 1,725 were produced that year.
The 300 would return for 1956 as the 300B, with subsequent model years utilizing the next letter, (skipping the letter "I"). Initially available only as a hardtop coupe, a convertible was added for 1957.
Beginning in 1962, the "Letter" 300, (which had reached the letter "H" in the naming scheme), was joined by a non-letter version of the car called simply the 300. This allowed the 300 name to be expanded into a 4-door sedan body style. While the letter cars were low volume high performance cars, the new non-letter variant brought much needed sales to the line. By the end of 1965, the Letter car was discontinued, leaving only the 300 name.The Ford Mustang is credited for creating the "Pony Car" segment when it debuted 0n April 17, 1964. But the Plymouth Barracuda actually arrived in dealer's showrooms two weeks before the Mustang. That didn't matter, as the Mustang outsold the Barracuda by more than 5 to 1 in its first year. By 1967, the gap was more than 7 to 1 in favor of the Mustang. That makes this car quite rare. A total of 4,228 convertibles were produced that year. I believe this car is powered by the 180 hp version of Plymouth's 273 CID V8.
In all the years of Nova production from 1962 - 1979, (I'm not including the rebadged Toyotas from 1985 - 88), a convertible was only offered for 1962 and 1963. The Nova SS was introduced in 1963, and was only available as a convertible for one year. That makes this a somewhat rare car, being one of 24,823 made.
The name "Motion" seen on the valve cover in the photo above is a reference to Motion Performance of Baldwin, New York. Joe Rosen was well known in east coast drag racing circles as someone who knew how to build a fast car. In 1966, Rosen and Baldwin Chevrolet General Manager, Ed Simonin, formed a partnership where customers of Baldwin Chevrolet could have their newly purchased Corvette, Camaro, or Chevelle sent to Rosen's nearby Motion Performance shop and transformed into a street legal race car. Each build was a custom job with the outrageousness of the final product being limited only by the customer's imagination and bank account.
I love the C4 Corvette, even though most people don't. The C3 and C4 cars are what I saw growing up, and are what I think of when I hear the word "Corvette." This beautiful dark green 1994 convertible has a 6-speed manual transmission and shows 72k miles on the odometer. This is another car I would own in a heartbeat, even in spite of the dreaded Opti-Spark system.
1982 Chevrolet Corvette Collector's Edition.
This car represents the last of the C3 body, which was celebrated with a special Collector Edition car. Of the 25,407 Corvettes produced for 1982, 6,759 were Collector Edition cars like this one. Priced at more than $22k, these cars got special paint, interior and exterior trim tweaks, unique wheels, and bronze tinting on the glass roof panels. But the most significant Collector Edition feature was its hinged glass rear window. This allowed for easier access to the luggage compartment and was a sign of what was to come.