Starting Lines

2022 Ford GT LM to be Last Special Edition of Current-Gen Supercar

The new 2022 Ford GT LM Edition will be the final special edition of the Ford supercar and honours the only LeMans-winning car to come out of the U.S. The carbon fibre body will feature a Liquid Silver paint finish with either a red or blue theme throughout, paying homage to the red and blue race livery of the Le Mans winning car. Owners can also choose from an exposed red or blue tinted carbon fibre that includes the front splitter, side sills, door sills, engine bay louvres, mirror stocks and rear diffuser. Custom 20-in. carbon fibre wheels with titanium lug nuts and Brembo brake calipers are also featured. Unique to the Ford GT LM is a 3D titanium-printed dual-exhaust that features a cyclonic design inside the tips. Inside features Alcantara-wrapped carbon fibre seats with a matching red or blue driver’s seat and Ebony passenger seat with accent stitching that will match the driver’s seat colour. Powering the Ford GT LM will be a twin-turbo, 660-horsepower EcoBoost engine. Only 20 of these special edition cars will be made with deliveries having started in early fall, with production set to wrap up at the end of this year.

Volume 20, Issue No. 6 December / January 2022

Second Class Mailing Agreement #40050183

Publisher: Dean Washington dean@rpmcanada.ca

Associate Publisher: David Symons david@rpmcanada.ca

Managing Editor Jordan Allan jordan@rpmcanada.ca

Distribution Manager: Brenda Washington brenda@rpmcanada.ca

Copy Editor: Gerry Frechette gerryf@rpmcanada.ca

Advertising Sales: Elaine Fontaine elaine@rpmcanada.ca

Contributing Writers / Photographers: Jordan Allan John Gunnell Dan Heyman Cam Hutchins

Muscle Car Plus Magazine is published six times per year by RPM Media Inc.

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Dodge used the recent 2022 SEMA Show to showcase the Dodge Charger Daytona SRT Concept car that is fully battery-electric, and that Dodge says offers a peek at the future of their brand. “The SEMA Show is one of the great gatherings of the performance culture, and Dodge isn’t going to shy away as we develop the next generation of muscle car – one that just happens to be fully electric,” said Tim Kuniskis, Dodge brand chief executive officer – Stellantis. “Technology moves forward and the customizers and tuners move right along with it. We’re demonstrating how old-school hot-rodding will thrive in an electrified muscle-car future.” Nine possible powertrain outputs were announced by Dodge at the show with three different battery-electric power levels shown as well as two levels of Dodge Direct Connection performance upgrades for each power level. Dodge says they will take a stair-step approach to its electrified performance with 400-volt system output levels of 340 kilowatts (456 hp) and 440 kilowatts (590 hp) and an unannounced, factory-delivered, power-level 800-volt Banshee powertrain package. Direct Connection Stage 1 and Stage 2 performance upgrades use a “crystal” key that plugs into the dash. Numbers for the 800-volt Banshee will be announced at a later date.

Mecum Kissimmee Collector Car Auction

The annual migration by collector car enthusiasts to Mecum Kissimmee for the world’s largest collector car auction will continue January 4-15 with an estimated 4,000 consignments offered at auction. Among the main attractions will be a 1970 Pontiac GTO Judge Ram Air IV Convertible from The Chuck Cocoma & GTO Ram Air IV Collection that is one of seven Ram Air IV GTO Judge Convertibles produced with automatic transmission. Its extensive body-off-frame restoration garnered POCI Junior Gold in 1999 and a Senior Gold in 2000. To consign a vehicle or to register to bid, see mecum.com or call 262-275-5050.

MAG Auctions Wekopa Collector Car Auction

MAG Auctions will be hosting a Collector Car Auction event on January 27-28 at the Wekopa Casino Resort in Fort McDowell, Arizona. Over 350 classic cars, hot rods, muscle cars and rare memorabilia are expected at the event so there will be something for everyone. Tickets can be purchased at the front gate with doors opening for general admission at 9am each day. To consign your car, register to bid or to get more information, please go to www.motorsportauctiongroup. com or call us at 1-888-330-0749.

Rolling Artwork

Shaun Reitz’s 1972 Chevrolet Vega Hatchback

The youth today have no idea what terrible cars us old guys had to suffer with as youngsters. Just looking online at modern Kia’s, and they all do a zero-to-60 mph in well under 9 seconds, many 7 seconds, whereas in 1975, Road & Track road tested a Chevy Vega GT and it took 15.8 seconds to reach 60 mph. You could film two TikTok dance videos in that time!

And not only were the cars from the ‘70s slow, but they were also rusty after a couple of years and they almost never had power windows and forget about air conditioning. But the Vegas had a special feature; they had engines that wore out

very prematurely, so there were so many left for sale cheap, that they just begged to have small-block Chevys stuffed into them.

The Vega was General Motors’ attempt to build a small car to compete with VW Beetles and Japanese cars. The Vega failed so badly, it harmed General Motors for decades to come. The car won Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award, Car and Driver named it the best economy sedan three years in a row, the car became a legend, but not for any good reasons. Popular Mechanics referred to the Vega as the car that nearly destroyed GM!

A new compact car was so important to GM, it was designed by GM Corporate and then handed to Chevy to build and sell. Prior to this, the five major GM divisions - Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick and Cadillac - were all building and designing their own cars, sharing very little. GM wanted the car to be cheap. Really cheap, VW Beetle cheap, cheaper than Ford’s Pinto. When your bar is the Pinto, you are doomed to fail, and fail the Vega did, in spades.

A new sleeveless aluminum engine was designed. It failed. Some quipped that when you saw a Vega on the road that was not pumping smoke out of the tail pipe, it was either broken down or being towed. A new multi-coat rust proofing was designed, but air pockets kept parts of the underside and internals of the body completely free of rust-fighting coatings.

To fight costs, a new railcar was built to ship not 18 cars for each train car, but the Verti Pack train cars could ship 30 cars per train car, by positioning the cars straight up and down. Special tanks had to be designed so the cars would not drain their fluids when standing on their nose, but GM saved 40 percent in shipping.

The cars sold well because they were economical to drive compared to the land barges of the day. But it has been written that by the end of 1972, almost all the Vegas sold had safety flaws. Almost two million Vegas were built in the few years of production, and in reality the only ones you see left on the roads today are at car shows with V8s stuffed in them.

Finally, someone found a cure for the crappy motors, a V8, and coincidentally this stopped the rust as now the cars were never driven in the rain or slush and stayed in garages when not racing or at car shows. This is the tale of one such car.

Shaun Reitz was just a child when his parents brought home a new Vega Wagon. The car had just 60,000 miles when the engine grenaded itself and the car was pushed to the side of the yard for the blackberries to claim it. Although there was a perfectly good Vega sitting becoming “Yard Art,” it was left alone while Reitz’s dad John was building Hot Rods, hot Camaros and stuffing V8s into a few Vegas. Shaun was very interested in what his Dad was doing and loved helping out as best he could.

When Shaun was 12, he was told the “blowed up” Vega in the bushes was his! His Dad helped him remove it from the bush, clean off the moss and algae and stuff a V8 into the little car. His dad also helped him paint the car. Shaun drove it to High School and while in Grade 11 had someone put tubs and a roll cage into it, because he did not know how to weld back then. His dad is the reason Shaun loved cars and Hot Rods so much, and learned what he could from his dad who was very talented on the mechanical and electrical side of building hot cars. This is probably why Shaun took up fabrication, so he could take his car building to another level, and between Father and Son they can build anything!

Shaun also was driving either his ‘67 Chevy II, an ‘81 Malibu, a ‘39 Chevy Sedan, or a ‘74 Pontiac GTO, the Ventura-based one. The Vega would always be there but eventually it became a race car, and for Shaun to keep up, he went to trade school to be a welderfabricator so he could do the almost constant changes and repairs he wanted for his Vega. He even had a chopped and lowered 1984 Shortbox Chevy pickup to trailer the car to the races.

Quite a while ago, he sold his original Vega Mom and Dad had given him and that he had built five times, over the years. All sorts of engines and paint jobs, and lots of racing. It went through various stages, mostly all-out race car, but still street legal, almost. You would not be able to take it through a drive-thru, go shopping at Costco or work as a “Skip the Dishes” driver! The car always had nice paint and interior and wheels...for a race car!

The fellow who bought it loved it and his cousin asked Shaun if he could build him one out of his own Vega Hatchback that he had started to build. Shaun figured he could take all the skills he had learned from his first Vega and build a really great car for the guy. The project outlasted the fellow’s love for a Vega and Shaun took over the build for himself, but other projects kept getting in the way, and the Vega just sat in the corner of his shop.

Shaun and his wife Crystal were hanging out in the shop, and they were looking at the Vega, and thinking about what should happen to it. It was 2017 and the big Turbo LS craze was sweeping the car world. Hell, even old 5.0 Mustangs were getting LS swaps! But Shaun thought, why not avoid the craze and build the type of car that everyone loved back in the day. Nothing too fancy, no blower or nitrous, just a big stomping cam and a roll cage to keep the whole thing together.

In a very short period of time, Shaun and his dad took a car that came to them in primer, and built the car you see here. Although Shaun says, “the body was pretty good, except the engine bay and floor, that all had to be fixed.” Only a welder/fabricator could say a car had a good body when it has no floor! The body now is mostly unibody with a rear frame and with new welded floors, designed, fabricated and welded by Reitz Custom Fabrication.

The only body mods were to push the firewall back six inches, a four-inch Cowl Induction hood scoop re-shaped and grafted onto the stock steel hood, and rear valance cut to accept exhaust tips, but everything else is original looking. All this work was done by Shaun’s company, Reitz Custom Fabrication. The dash is in its stock place, but the seats and steering wheel are pushed back. A new passenger-side front fender was required; no 1972 fenders were available, so the ‘72 side marker light had to be grafted into a later fender.

The back frame is made from 2x3 tubing and tied into the front unibody, and it is all strengthened by a 14-point roll cage attached to the 2x3 frame and the front unibody. The car features a custom tubular, exposed transmission tunnel and driveshaft loops, with sheet metal on the underside of the tunnel wrapped in carbon fibre.

The back of the car features massive tubs and a narrowed 12-bolt posi with 4.56 gears and ladder bars with a wishbone track locator and double adjustable QA-1 coilovers. The diff did come with the car. The front has a “stockish” Vega front suspension with all new bushings and powder coated black, but with custom brackets for the Boss air ride system on the front suspension. Four-wheel Wilwood discs and master cylinder stop the beast.

It is running a GM Goodwrench 350 block, bored .030 over (355 cubic inch) with Performance World CNC-machined heads, with 67cc chamber, machined for larger springs. The mill runs a Crower Roller Cam with a massive 650 lift, Crower roller lifters, Manley Titanium pushrods, Crane stud girdles and Crane 1.5 roller rockers. The Skat H-Beam Rods connect the Icon 11:1 forged pistons to a GM Steel crank with a compression ratio of 11 to 1.

The Small Block Chevy is topped off with an aluminum Edelbrock Victor Junior and Holley 830 annular discharge carb and Edelbrock air cleaner. The carb has been with Shaun since 1994 when he bought it from Burnaby Auto Parts and was used on his old Vega. To dress up the engine a bit, there is an aluminum water pump, aluminum Tall Valve covers, aluminum timing chain cover, and serpentine pulleys. All this works out to a beefy 496 horsepower at the crank and 476 lb-ft of torque. At 7,300 rpm! The 1 3/4-inch headers are custom-built by Shaun, along with 2 1/2-inch exhaust, and it is all ceramiccoated black. The spark is handled by a Performance World billet distributor, an MSD 6AL electronic ignition and 8mm MSD spark plug leads. The whole car is wired with a Speedway Motors wiring harness.

He runs a GM Turbo Hydramatic 350 transmission with shift kit and 5,500-stall Pro West torque converter. The transmission was built by Steve at Hot Rods Restos. Rod from Hot Rods Restos donated the TCS Outlaw Shifter.

The interior is all custom-built with the dash covered in leather, and the dash face and transmission tunnel are covered in a carbon fibre wrap. There is a polished aluminum tilt steering column, Bosch gauges, Autometer digital tach, and very trick LED under-dash courtesy lights. The PW seats have PW five-point harnesses, and the Grant steering wheel came from Mopac. They have the white French stitching so the rest of the vinyl interior is also stitched to match the seats. The floor is covered in black carpet and the ceiling has the old headliner removed and a new microsuede liner is applied directly to the interior roof without a dome light. The engine and exhaust make a sound system redundant, but there is a USB charging port.

Shaun did most of the bodywork with it being perfected and sprayed by Larry Shannon. The paint was picked after his painter gave him a whole bunch of paint swatches to look over. The three colours of Sherwin Williams Base Clear that were chosen were all Mazda colours. The body pinstripe, frame and rollbar are in a great deep red colour, called Morello Pearl. The top of the car is Carbon Metallic and the under side is Cosmic Grey pearl. Since the outside is painted to look like a shark, it is not a big leap to think that Shaun and his wife were watching a show on sharks while picking the paint colours.

A few parts came from E-bay and friends and swap meets because parts for Vegas are very hard to find. E-bay was the source of a new driver’s side headlight rim and a new grille. The tires, 24x5x15 Mickey Thompson Sportsmen S/R tires on the front and 28x12x15 Mickey Thompson Sportsmen S/R tires on the rear, were also donated by Rod Neilsen from Hot Rods Restos. The rear wheels came with the car and they are 15x10 E.T. Turbine wheels, with 15x4 Rocket Launcher wheels on the front.

The car was finished in 2019 and the problem is, Shaun now wants to build a Willys. Without racing, driving seems boring. So, a 1940 Willys will soon go under the torch for some corrective surgery! With a torch in his hand, Shaun is a very versatile artist; his art makes music with his tailpipes and tires, and after he finishes building a car, they look better than any painting or sculpture in any museum in Europe. So move over “Mona Lisa,” a little bit of rolling artwork Vega just made you its bitch!

Retro and Modern

2022 Ford Mustang GT Convertible

Story and photos by Dan Heyman as we know it, we thought it’d be a good time to take one out and see just how much life it has left.

When it comes to styling, the Mustang starts out as a great mix of retro and modern, and especially in my tester’s eye-catching (or should that be “eye-grabbing”?) Grabber Blue hue, it’s got a proper muscle car vibe going on. The “eagle eye” headlamps – added for the 2018 model year – are a perfect fit for the Mustang ethos. I do have to say, however, that the 19-inch wheels do look a little pedestrian here. I think I would have liked something bigger (20s are an option), perhaps finished in something other than the rental-spec nickel-plated aluminum seen here.

Inside, meanwhile, you’ve got all the telltale Mustang stuff like deeply recessed gauges – which are actually on a single digital display that can be modified to look like a classic two-gauge set-up, or a modern affair that has the tach wrapping around half of the instrument cluster – gauge roundels atop the centre stack, proper mechanical handbrake and threespoke steering wheel. There’s also quite a helping of plastic, but that is kind of all part of the muscle car ethos and doesn’t bother me all that much.

What has my nose a little more out of joint is actually what’s been done to move away from the classic and into the modern; there are far too many buttons attached to the wheel – for your cruise,

Ahhh, the Ford Mustang. When it comes to all-time classic funto-drive cars, you could do a heck of a lot worse. The looks, the power, the prestige and history, the Silver Screen car chases; it never gets old.

Except, it does and now there’s a new one coming. This isn’t one of those, but with ’22 being close to the end of the line for the Mustang

your Mustang-specific drive settings, your audio controls, your navigation buttons – that takes away from that great classic three-spoke look. Not to mention that the one button you’d think you’d want on the wheel – that for the steering wheel heater – isn’t there, but accessed via the central infotainment display, even though the seat heaters get traditional “hard” buttons.

I do love the seats, though; they look nice and low-profile but are still well-cushioned and supportive in all the right places. They sit more comfortable than they look, that’s for sure, although the rear seats remain fairly vestigial, even if they do have child seat anchors.

I’m also a fan of Ford’s SYNC infotainment system; the Mustang doesn’t get the newest version of the tech – few models in the line-up do for now – but its SYNC3 system remains intuitive, with nicely-positioned buttons and menus. There’s also support for Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Any audio you play through said systems runs through a 12-speaker B&O sound system on my tester; that’s a $1,000 upcharge but it does provide crisp, clear sound and even though I love the sound of a V8 as much as the next muscle car person, I don’t say no to good audio, even at the $1,000 level seen here.

The way the semi-power folding soft top works is also a nice mix of the old and new; you start the process by cranking on a nice, chunky-feeling release lever and then the electric motors do the rest, with the whole affair taking about

15 seconds to complete. The only thing is that having to reach up to tuck away the release lever as the roof is deploying can be a bit awkward.

You’ll probably want to spend most of your time with the top down, though – it is a convertible, after all, and if you’re not going to be dropping the top, what’s the point, really? Even if the Mustang looks much better with its top in place than the Camaro does, although that’s not saying all that much.

With top-down motoring, you get the great wind in your hair, sun on your scalp (sunscreen- don’t forget the sunscreen) and better still, you really get to hear the yowl of that great Coyote V8 just ahead of you. Even though the auto doesn’t rev as freely as the manual does, there’s still plenty of burble and pop from the powertrain to keep you and your ears happy. Though you can adjust the exhaust note to four levels, if you don’t want to wake the neighbours.

My tester came equipped with a the six-speed manual option, and it is really rather good. As many times as I’ve driven the Mustangs and in as many levels of spec, I’m always surprised just how much this ‘box feels like something from a smaller sports car like an MX-5 or Boxster. It’s snicketysnick good, the throw is right on and clutch take-up, while just a titch on the long side, is easily controlled.

Acceleration is, of course, very brisk as you move through the gears; there’s no forced induction here, so power gets sent to the rear wheels with little hesitation and the meaty Goodyear Eagle

F1 rubber gets the power to the road in a confidence-inspiring way. Then, said rubber does well to help keep things copacetic as you wind this ‘Stang through the twisties, even if the steering could be a little more responsive. That’s an issue not really helped by the added weight the convertible has over the fastback coupe, which amounts to just over 80 kilograms. Of course, if you are beheading your Mustang and opting for the auto transmission, chances are you aren’t going to be too bothered if you aren’t setting the top lap time at Laguna Seca Raceway.

Indeed, you’ll likely be more concerned that you have a comfortable ride and enough power to perform the everyday tasks every vehicle needs to do well. With the Mustang, the good news is that in addition to those seats, the ride does well to meter out most bumps and the chassis doesn’t feel quite as squishy as convertibles sometimes do. The addition of the $2,500 MagneRide adaptive dampers on my tester is a huge help in this regard, both in terms of reducing the bumps and bangs, but also keeping the ‘Stang tracking true through bends. Add the ultra-responsive and grippy Brembo brakes and what you have here is a proper performance drop-top.

Here’s the thing, though. I say “performance drop top”, but I do wonder if that’s really what one would be opting for when it comes to the Mustang Convertible. Convertibles as a rule are about the quality of life they provide, the thrill of the wind through your hair and all that. Which you get without having to add all those performance bits – the 3.73 rear axle, the MagneRide, spoiler delete, more – my tester’s Performance Pack provides. There’s a Mustang coupe for that, and it’s less expensive. Drop the top, keep the V8, keep that noisy exhaust and keep the colour but save yourself almost 10 grand by skipping the performance package and dampers. Now we’re talkin’.

Second Coming

1956 Mercury Medalist

The deep-dish steering wheel was part of FoMoCo’s mid-‘50s safety package.

Here’s the car Jim found for Bob before the restoration work was done on it.

Story and photos by John Gunnell

Collectors often talk about the cars they “let go” years ago. At least one of them--Bob Buchman, of Hortonville, Wis.—opted to go back and recreate the Niagara Blue ‘56 Mercury Medalist two-door hardtop that he’d let go years earlier. He’d scrapped the car’s body in the mid-‘60s, but only after he pulled the engine and transmission out of it because they were very special.

The car had been fitted with an optional M 260 engine kit that wasn’t released until Jan. 20, 1956. The kit contained 29 parts or groups of parts that were designed for dealer installation. The M 260 hardware converted the regular 312cid 225-hp engine into a 235-hp engine.

In a March 19, 1956 letter, a Mercury service department manager in Los Angeles named R.E. Sutherland said the new engine option would be announced on April 19, 1956. While not specifically promoted as a Ford or Mercury racing option, that’s exactly what the M 260 kit was.

Bob Buchman’s relationship with the M 260 actually began in 1963, when he bought a 1955 Ford four-door model to drive to Florida. That’s where he was stationed as a United States Air Force airman. In those days, many military personnel practiced the sport of drag racing.

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speeding in Kentucky on his way to Florida. It happened in one of those small-town speed traps. “I just gave the cop $25 and he never asked to see my driver’s license,” Bob admitted to Muscle Car Plus. “That was a good break for me, since I didn’t have a driver’s license then.”

Bob got to Florida and found that drag racing was very popular there at that time. “Everyone was doing it then,” Buchman remembers. “A guy who had a ’56 Mercury hardtop wanted to race me. He and I actually wound up trading the bodies of our cars. So, I kept the drive train. I stored the engine in my foot locker and rebuilt it right there in the Panama City barracks.”

One day Buchman was listening to a buy-and-sell program on the radio and someone came on with some car parts to sell. They included a dual fourbarrel carb intake manifold and finned aluminum valve covers. The selling price was just $25, so Bob bought those parts, too.

Buchman ported and polished the engine’s cylinder heads and rebuilt the Holley four-barrel carburetors. Then, he went drag racing. He ran at strips in Florida, Georgia and Alabama and did quite well. Bob was close to his Air Force discharge date and a buddy asked him what he was going to do with the car. “I’ll probably give it to my younger brother Jim,” he answered.

So, Jim Buchman got the car. He was in high school at the time. Jim cruised around in the Mercury and, once in a while, did a little street racing with it, too. He dated his future wife, Vicki, in the

The car was stripped down to the frame and rebuilt in Bob’s home shop.

Ford-powered Mercury. When he lost his driver’s license, Vicki had to drive it and actually learned how to drive a stick shift car that way. Eventually, the body got rusty. That’s when Bob pulled the drive train out and took the body to the scrapyard.

“I saved the engine and transmission and the rest of it went bye-bye,” Bob laughed. A few years after that, Jim called Bob up to tell him he’d found a Niagara Blue ’56 Mercury Medalist two-door hardtop for sale in Minnesota. Ironically, the car had no engine or transmission in it. “If you don’t buy it, I will,” Jim Buchman warned Bob. So, big brother Bob laid out $5,000 for the car.

The Minnesota Merc was no mint-condition example, but it could certainly be built to resemble the original Medalist that Bob and Jim drove. The car had an automatic transmission, however, so Jim and Bob went to North Carolina and bought a stick-shift parts car. They needed the steering column and other parts made exclusively for stick-shift cars.

Getting the car they needed to make a clone of the first Merc meant a lot to the brothers. “To me, it brought back good memories,” Bob explained. “I had a lot of fun with that car in Florida.” For Jim, it was the car he’d dated Vicki in and it had been a fun ride for him, too.

In the old days, Bob didn’t bracket race the old Merc. He actually ran it in G & H stock classes. He says he raced head-to-head against 421-powered Pontiacs and did fairly well. “The Ponchos had more power,” Bob admitted. “But they were also heavier cars.”

The engine in Bob’s car was actually a 292 with a 312 crankshaft. It had ‘57 cylinder heads, which had larger intake valves. The exhaust

Mercury styling touches were a bit upscale from its Ford cousin’s. valves came from a 368 Lincoln V8 and were bigger yet. By milling the cylinder heads, Bob took the compression ratio up to 11.0:1. The twin Holley four-barrels helped with the go-power, too. Bob actually bought an Isky cam for $25 at a Sears Roebuck store. (Who remembers when Sears stores had big auto parts departments?)

Bob Buchman says he learned many Ford performance tricks when he was in the service and a bunch of them came from a fellow airman who drag raced a ’57 Chevy. “He was from Ohio and he always told me what Ford guys did to their cars,” Bob explained. “This man even built me a transistor ignition system from scrap parts that he scrounged up from airplanes.”

Bob’s first Mercury had a top speed of about 120 mph. He remembers that it turned 100 mph in the quarter mile. “My brother Jim bet

one guy he could do 70 mph in second gear,” Bob laughed. “He did it, but he never told the guy he was in overdrive.” Bob says the 292 was never a high-revving engine, but he managed to get 6500 rpm out of his with the tricks he learned.

Bob Buchman spent about six years doing a complete restoration of the Minnesota Medalist. He has photos of the entire job from mounting it in a homemade rotisserie to the day his son sprayed new Niagara Blue paint on the body. “It was a lot of work to put together this second coming of the Mercury,” he emphasizes. “But, it was definitely worth doing it.”

Bob had the M 260 valve cover emblems specially made.