Car Profiles

Thunder from Down Under: How Australia’s auto industry flexed its muscles

February 04, 2011

With the exception of Mad Max’s modified Ford Falcon XB coupe in the first two of Mel Gibson’s films, few people outside Australia are familiar with the V-8 muscle cars that roared across the Australian landscape between 1967 and 1978.
Yet they make an interesting choice for lovers of British cars, as they are genuine right-hand drive muscle with some advantages over their American cousins ...
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1968 Ford XR Falcon XR [By Bidgee (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5-au (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/au/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons]

The Collector and the Car: MG? OMG!

January 05, 2011

How much is that MG in the window? Priceless, if you’re Jerry Niemi and you spent 2,000 hours and 13 years restoring it.
Niemi was one of four northern Michigan MG owners who recently displayed a prized British sports car in Hagerty’s lobby window and took part in Hagerty’s monthly “Collector and the Car” employee-education series in Traverse City, Mich. Three of those vehicles have been painstakingly restored; the fourth remains original ...
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Jerry Niemi spent 2,000 hours and 13 years restoring a 1947 MG TC. He showed off the finished car at Hagerty’s headquarters in Traverse City.

Amazing Austin collection housed in Oregon garages

January 05, 2011

Three lockup garages in Oregon City hold one of the strangest discoveries in this part of the world.
Since 1944, retired doctor John Cleland has amassed 15 Austin Sevens. Some are the 1929-35 American Austins, built in Butler, Pa.; a few are 1930-36 English Austin Seven “Chummy” and “Ruby” models; and a half dozen are American Bantams – the “Donald Duck” roadsters built between 1937-41. For good measure he also has two English Ford Model Y 4-doors, dating from 1933-35 and looking like miniature ’34 American Fords ...
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Cleland's olive and tan 1939 powered by an OHV, 4-cylinder 850cc Morris Minor engine sold for $19,890 at a Bonhams auction in November 2010.

Cleland's olive and tan 1939 American Bantam Roadster powered by an OHV, 4-cylinder 850cc Morris Minor engine sold for $19,890 at a Bonhams auction in November 2010.

Pantera: Ripe for picking up, not picking on

December 09, 2010

A few months ago, we included the Pantera on our list of "Yesterday's Misfires, Today's Collectibles." Some of our readers took exception to our characterization of the Pantera as "poorly built and (with) numerous mechanical flaws." In an effort to make peace, here's the other side of the story from a dedicated reader and client -- and Pantera fan -- Adams Hudson.
“No, it’s not a Ferrari,” I said, trying to look as if I hadn’t been asked this question thousands of times ...
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