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You may have heard of the Bondurant School of  High Performance Driving . The Bondurant School is based at Firebird International Raceway near Phoenix, Arizona . Several different programs are offered including some covering Race Driving, and some covering Street and Highway driving. The school features a 60 acre facility and a 1.6 mile track designed by world champion driver Bob Bondurant .   2011 SMS Bonderant Chevy Camaro The Bondurant School’s fleet of 1LE package Camaros , are powered by Chevrolet’s L99-code LS3 , good for 426 horsepower through a six-speed manual transmission. The car featured in this article is a SMS Bondurant Chevrolet Camaro . SMS Supercars was founded by Steve Saleen in 2008. SMS Supercars offers the ultimate vehicle, manufactured and marketed as Black Label models.These are the ultimate performance models. Bob Bondurant Bob Bondurant was a consistent winner on the race circuit. During 15 years of racing Bondurant had a winning record. His ...

Featured in this article is a 1967 Chevrolet Camaro Convertible . This was Camaro's first year. The Chevy Camaro came on the scene as a direct competitor to the successful Ford Mustang. This was called General Motor's F-car project . The first Camaro came out in September 1966, a few years after the first Mustang. These cars were offered as both hardtop coupes and convertibles. 1967 Chevy Camaro SS Convertible The 67 Camaro SS models had a simulated air intake and a blacked out grille and can be classified as milestone cars. Camaro Vs. Mustang The first generation Camaros ran from the 1967 models through the 1969 model years. It took Chevy a few years after the Mustang to bring out the Camaro.The Camaro styling caught on fast with the public The two cars, Camaro and Mustang, were targeting the exact same market. As an added promotional boost for the new Chevy model, the 1967 Chevy Camaro was the Pace Car at the Indy 500 that year. It's interesting to note that when t...

The car featured in this article is a 1968 Ford Mustang Fastback , entirely powered by electric fuel cells. In addition to that, the car's ownership claims a Zero to 60 MPH time of 2.82 seconds . The original engine for this car was a 289 cubic inch small-block . When this car hit the drag strip with it's powerful electric batteries it's front wheels raised over a foot off the ground. The converted model shown here is the prototype Zombie 222 . 68 Ford Mustang Zombie 222 Electric Automobile Motors We haven't reached the time as of this writing where muscle car enthusiasts discuss kilowatts and power in the same sentence. Where would that loud engine roar come from? Isn't that a feature of very powerful car engines, a loud sound? What should a person do with all those batteries when they are "dead"? These cannot just be thrown out. These dead battery cells are full of lead and other toxic and corrosive substances. The all electric Tesla Roadster is a fast...

Early Automobile Racing and the Advantages It Offered One way to publicize the new motorized vehicles including one's own brand was to enter your automobile into competition. Chicago has the distinction of being the first city to officially put on a road race. The race occurred in 1895 with a 54 miles course . This first automobile race was one by Frank Duryea in a competition that lasted some 10 1/2 hours . Fronty-Ford Racer The car was named the Duryea Motor Wagon was powered by gasoline (steam power was popular at the time) and it's average speed was calculated to have been 7.5 MPH . With such publicity the Duryea Motor Wagon Company sold thirteen of their vehicles in 1896, representing the first automobiles sold in the U.S. Nine years later in 1905 the Duryea Motor Wagon Company was producing sixty cars per year. Model T Conversions and the Fronty Fords The Ford Model T’s factory 22 horsepower engine was going to be modified quite a bit. A company known by the name ...

  37 Chevy Coupe with 350 Chevy engine Chevy in the Late 1930's For the model years 1937-1939 Chevrolet made a lot of improvements both in styling and with their engines. Advertising at the time touted the 1937 Chevy as "The complete car, completely new". Designing of this Master Deluxe model is credited to Jules Agramonte who is also credited for the 1934 popular and stunning LaSalle.styling. Jules Agramonte designed the Chevy Coupes, working for and under Harley Earl . The late 30's Chevy designs looked so good that their pickup trucks were also well known for their good styling.  In 1937 the Chevrolet Master replaced the Standard Six and the Master Deluxe was a luxurious version of the Master model. The late 1930's were good years for Chevrolet. For 1937 Chevy came out with a Master Deluxe Coupe that weighed 2,840 lbs with the hardtop and 2,770 lbs with the convertible. The wheelbase for the 37 coupe was 112.0 inches . Classic 37 Chevy Street Rod The dif...

When the the Lamborghini Countach model came out it was an absolute uncontested Supercar for about a dozen years. In fact, it was the world's first Supercar . Challengers finally came on the scene beginning with the Ferrari F 40 and the Porsche limited production 929.in 1987. The 1989 Lamborghini Countach Lamborghini is an Italian automaker that now operates as a subsidiary of Audi which itself is owned by Volkswagen.   Audi took over Lamborghini in 1998 from a group of Malaysian investors who themselves had taken over the nameplate from Chrysler.  Marcello Gandini Stylist Marcello Gandini gets the credit for the Lamborghini Countach's sleek styling.. One of the popular stories about the Lamborghini Countach is that, when designing the car, Gandini was considered relatively new to the field of auto design. With that being said, Gandini was hired in 1965 by Bertone to be it's head of design. His first design for Bertone was the Lamborghini Miura . Other automakers t...

Featured in this article is a 1937 Buick Coupe Street Rod . This is the perfect street rod to take to the cruise-ins and car shows not to mention the strip.Many automobile models during the 1930's became popular street rods and hot rods such as the 32 Ford Deuce Coupe. 1937 Buick Coupe Street Rod Great Bargains During the 1930's to the local cruise-ins and car shows The automobile model year of 1937 offered some terrific values for buyers . An old article from the Chicago Tribune in the fall of 1936 stated that car buyers will see some of the best bargains ever offered for new automobiles. Buick offered some of the lowest prices ever that year. DeSoto itself advertised that their 1937 new car prices would be less than the year before. Success for Buick in the 1930's Buick was doing well in 1937 and offered some classic designs . It was the time when Buick put out some elegant automobiles. General Motors had a reputation for putting a lot of emphasis in body design. ome say...

The automobile featured in this article is a 1932 Ford 3-Window Coupe Street Rod.  Ford models from the 1932's have long been popular as street rods and dragsters. Don't be surprised to see a modified 1932 Ford Coupe power packed with a 510 HP Supercharged 355 cubic inch SB Chevy engine. Our featured car in this article has a 350 cubic inch Chevy V-8 engine . 32 Ford Coupe with 350 Chevy V-8 Chevy 350 Engines Chevrolet's small block V-8 made a name for itself in automotive engine history. The engine was considered technologically advanced when it was introduced in 1955 . There have been several variations of the Chevy small block V-8 . These highly popular engines have been put into a large variety of vehicles, including race cars, off-road trucks, boats, and  custom motorcycles . Today, you'll find many of these in classic Ford hot rods like the one featured here. A real interesting bit of automotive history is that this small block Chevy V-8 of 1955 was not the...

The street rod featured in this article is a modified 1924 Dodge Brothers Tourer with a heavily modified   1956 DeSoto Blown Hemi engine . Dodge Roadsters from the 1920's have been modified and customized into some of the most popular early hot rods on the track today. The exhaust pipes coming out of each side of the DeSoto hemi engine on our featured car adds to it's powerful look. 1924 Dodge Brothers Hot Rod Early Hot Rodding It's commonly believed that hot roddiing took off during the 1930's. Races were prevalent up and down the west coast and particularly on the dry lake beds north of  Los Angeles. The formula used was to buy a cheap roadster which was relatively light weight itself and then strip off anything you didn't absolutely need to make the car even lighter. This made for a perfect hot rod which you then you could modify or add a new engine to. An interesting side note is that it has been said that the term " hot rod " is really a contraction ...

Oldsmobile may not be the first name that comes to mind when thinking "muscle cars ". Oldsmobile did however make a fine contribution to the late 1960's muscle car era with it's 442 model . The 1968 Oldsmobile 442 was a muscle car of the late 1960's.  The Oldsmobile 442 was first introduced as an option package for the F-85 Cutlass and the more luxurious Cutlass models sold in the United States beginning with the 1964 model year. The name " 442 " tells us that the engine has the configuration of a four-barrel carburetor, a four-speed manual transmission, and dual exhaust pipes . The First Muscle Car So which automobile was the first American muscle car? There are more than one answer to that question.  There are some that say that Oldsmobile won this distinction when they put a Rocket V-8 engine into their 1949 Olds 88 and Super 88 models . There's a lot to this claim since the Olds Rocket V-8 engine was considered by most at that time as b...