This episode of Big Muscle on Drive is a casual tribute to the Shelby Cobra. The host spends the day driving and falling in love with a Cobra replica project car. It’s 450 hp in a 2200 pound short wheelbase chassis with a finish that doesn’t have to be worried about. It’s really nothing more profound than a call to build awesome cars and enjoy them.
This 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona is owned by Lee Sicilio and it will be running in Bonneville this August. It’s running a twin turbo 496 cubic inch Hemi built by Ray Barton and tuned by Scott Clark. The dyno run gets cut short, but you can tell this car is going to be a beast. They’re shooting to break 300 mph and Bangshift estimates the final power numbers to be in the 2000-2500 horsepower range.
It’s not hard to see why Ford was able to survive without having to take government bailout money. They’ve always had huge customer sales with their F-150 trucks and fleet sales of the Crown Victoria and Ford Ranger. They’re also innovating well as evident by their EcoBoost technology. That being said, the key to continued success is to not be afraid of reinventing yourself while you are at the peak of your success. Ford has ended production of both the Crown Vic and the Ranger as part of a large corporate restructuring. I believe the last Crown Victorias were purchased by a police department while the last Rangers were bought up by Orkin. This is a video documenting the trip of the last Ford Ranger down the assembly line at the Twin Cities Assembly Plant in St. Paul Minnesota. It’s pretty cool to see the line workers take pride in the quality product that they produced.
Jay Leno's Tank Car via Popular Mechanics
Meet Randy Grubb. He’s one of the more prominent members of a collective of craftsmen known as Blastolene. You may know him as the creator of Jay Leno’s “Tank Car.” He was also a member of the Monster Garage team that created the Peterbilt Trike:
If you like working on cars at all, you will like this video. It’s the latest installment in a series called Depth of Speed. The videos are mini-documentaries about people who are into cars. I enjoy them because they do a good job articulating what it is we love about wrenching and driving so much. It’s always difficult to justify what we do to people who aren’t into cars and simply don’t understand where we get our passion. This particular story is about a man named Allan who loves Datsuns. He says that going into his workshop to make parts is like his church. It’s his place of zen.