Belly Tank Racers Have you ever seen those old pictures of curious, low-slung hotrods with aluminum, torpedo-shaped bodies? These are called “Belly Tank Racers” and they were built to break speed records in the car-crazy 1940s-50s. The body of these hotrods came from aluminum drop tanks, or “belly tanks”, that were common on WWII aircraft. […]
Doing Nitrous If you like fast cars you undoubtedly have heard about Nitrous Oxide. Nitrous systems are a way to dramatically boost the horsepower of engines. They are not for standard street cars, however, because they can be dangerous. That being said, enthusiasts still install them on all sorts of cars and if you’ve wondered […]
Electric Turbocharging Once an exotic technology, turbocharging has become mainstream. Back a few decades ago, turbochargers were expensive and only installed on sports cars and race cars. The reason was pretty simple: to make the vehicle go faster. Today, turbochargers are still used on performance cars but they have become the technology of choice for […]
Prowling with Plymouth Chrysler’s Plymouth Division has been known for making some really unique cars once in a while. After all, this is the division brought us the outrageous Superbird back in the 70s. Well, in the 1990s, they did it again with the Prowler. The Prowler was unlike any other car ever made in […]
HEMI History It’s a word most the car people throw around a lot. Even on TV there are commercials that loudly tout “It’s a Hemi!” But what is a hemi, is it a real feature or just a marketing term? As it turns out, It’s both today. Thanks to the Service Department at Kims of […]
The Alfa Romeo was at a point in Europe considered one of the marque makes and models of the entire 1930’s and for a good part of that century. It was never really a vehicle looked at from North America as a valuable option for luxury vehicles. Now the automaker Alfa Romeo with FIAT Chrysler […]
Back in the late 1960s, Chrysler began a number of bold initiatives in an attempt to catch their chief competitors: General Motors and Ford. Unfortunately, a number of financial and economic factors came into play that disrupted plans. By the time the 1970s came to a close, Chrysler was on the verge of bankruptcy. To […]
In 1955, Chrysler built a car that was considered one of the first muscle cars. It was called the C-300 because its 331 cu. in. hemi engine developed a true 300HP. It was the first American car to do so. The C-300s were limited edition cars performance cars. They were offered only a select number […]
European cars have always been small and fuel efficient. This is because in Europe gasoline has been expensive to purchase for decades. If this wasn’t cause enough, in the mid-1970s, the crisis in the Gulf of Suez occurred and the very supply petroleum itself was threatened. Europeans realized that they needed vehicles that weren’t just […]
It all started with the ice cream cart. At the turn of the century, vendors in major cities sold ice cream out of ice-filled push carts to customers in ceramic dishes. After the customer finished the ice cream, the dish was then returned to the vendor, who wiped it down and loaded it up with […]