If we’re at the Monterey Jet Center, it must be McCall’s Motorworks, the traditional pregame soiree for the upcoming days of intensive automotive enthusiasm surrounding the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Now in its 26th year, Gordon McCall’s highbrow event offers a spectrum of vehicular wonderfulness, from World War II-era P-51 Mustangs to your garden-variety Porsches to lowriders.
Lowriders? Yes! After all, the classic Chicano automotive art form dates back to bombas, the straight-six-powered boulevardiers usually based on late-1930s Chevrolets. The impeccably detailed heaps pioneered a low-and-slow aesthetic further expanded by the guys who added hydraulics to 1960s full-size Chevys. There was even a hopping demo, which, on more than one occasion, nearly took out one of the well-heeled attendees who got a little too close to the bouncing ’64 Impala. Yes, he hit the switch. Yes, he made the ass drop.
Michael Leeds showed up with the Blown Ranger, latest in the line of oversized Blastolene machines he builds alongside Randy Grubb. The Paul Bunyan-sized dagger features a supercharged 1942 Fairchild Ranger V-12, which makes a reported 800 horsepower at 4500 rpm. On the opposite end of the spectrum was Pete Brock’s old Mexican 1000 Datsun 510 from 1969, which looked as if it had just woken up from a five-decade dirt nap in a Baja silt bed.
On the two-wheeled side of things, Arch Motorcycles, the bike-building concern founded by Keanu Reeves and Gard Hollinger, brought a Suter MMX 500, a Swiss-built, no-expense-spared 574-cc two-stroke V-4-powered GP-style machine. They’re the U.S. importer for the maniacal little rockets, and from everything we’ve heard, they sound like an absolute dream to ride.
And that’s the thing about McCall’s get-together, there’s always something to stoke the dreams of even the most jaded enthusiast. It’s not a huge sea of cars like some of the other shows taking place over the next few days, but no matter your vehicular passion, if you can’t find something to fall in love with at the Jet Center, well, you might just not like machines very much.
from Car and Driver BlogCar and Driver Blog http://ift.tt/2wexK59
via IFTTT
0 comments:
Post a Comment