Monday, 4 July 2016
The Spirit of ’76: See America First, in This GMC Motorhome
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Camping, as an American pastime, dates back at least as far as Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone at dawn of the 1900s, but it really didn’t ramp up until the 1960s, arguably reaching its zenith in the 1970s. Combine that with the bicentennial year’s impetus to see America first (rather than traipsing off to Acapulco or Paris), and 1976 was undoubtedly a banner year for heading to Yellowstone in an RV. And what better RV than the ultra-modern GMC motorhome?
The GMC motorhome was introduced for 1973 and remained in production through 1978, over which period nearly 13,000 were built. A radical departure from conventional motorhomes, it was built on the front-wheel-drive chassis of the Oldsmobile Toronado and Cadillac Eldorado, and used the Oldsmobile 455-cubic-inch V-8—later switching to the Olds 403 V-8. The lack of a driveshaft and an unusual swing-arm rear-suspension design allowed for an ultra-low floor and a low overall height. The smooth-sided body of fiberglass and aluminum, combined with the dual rear axles, extra-large windows, and wraparound windshield, made the GMC the style-setting, ne plus ultra of motorhomes.
This 1976 example, on offer from Sierra Classics and Imports in Reno, Nevada, is a 26-foot model—a 23-footer also was offered but was much less popular. Powered by the 455 V-8, it features air-conditioning, an on-board generator, a kitchen and bath, and sleeping for four. Whereas most RVs where white corrugated aluminum, the GMCs came in various colors, including the ’70s-tastic harvest gold we see here. The interior is equally period, with—yes—shag carpet and plaid tufted seating. Mileage is only 28,000, so one imagines this camper extraordinaire still has in it some further exploration of this great nation’s highways and byways, done with imitable American style.
“The Spirit of ’76” is C/D’s 4th-of-July holiday-weekend series highlighting some of the most awesome cars for sale from our nation’s bicentennial year.
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Sunday, 3 July 2016
The Spirit of ’76: Start Your Corvette Summer Now with this Stingray
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Prior to the third-generation Corvette, America’s sports car had seen frequent restyles and upgrades. In contrast, the ’68-82 cars saw only nose and tail revisions in ’73-74, and the addition of a glass fastback window in 1978. The slide into neglect didn’t end there. Having begun life offering a variety of powerful engines, by 1976, the poor C3s were suffering from deleterious power losses at the hands of the EPA and legislators in California, with further ignominy to come. On the track, none of that mattered, and John Greenwood’s maniacal, star-spangled take on the Corvette was winning races. And even when Greenwood’s cars weren’t winning races, they still looked and sounded more brutally violent than anything else on the track.
Thankfully, the C3 was designed in the 1960s, when a big-block engine was still an object Chevrolet considered an important thing for a sports car to carry on its option sheet. So even if the full-plastic ’Vettes were sucking the wind of their immediate predecessors and only offered neutered 350- and 305-cubic-inch V-8s, the modular nature of Chevrolet’s parts bin, as well as huge aftermarket support for blocks both small and big, made injecting a shot of testosterone into your wheezing machine as simple as spending some ducats and turning some wrenches.
Which is apparently what a previous owner of this 1976 Corvette did. Under that high, cowl-induction hood sits a 454-cubic-inch V-8. For a child of the late-’70s/early-’80s, a 454 was about the baddest-ass engine ever, mainly because it was still available in trucks, and thus relevant in a young mind, while the 426 Hemi had vanished into the ether—an abstraction that only appeared as a collection of plastic parts to be snipped from a Revell sprue. And although Ford’s 460 could still be had, “four-sixty” just doesn’t have the palindromic snap of “four-fifty-four.” Heck, even the one-louder 455s from Buick, Pontiac, and Oldsmobile don’t have the same ring. As a displacement number, only Chrysler’s “440” sounds as mean.
And if you’ve got a 454 and a Corvette, you’ve gotta have sidepipes. So there are sidepipes. And because it’s the 1970s, you obviously need a chrome luggage rack. As one staffer noted upon seeing the car, “Strap a three-foot bong to the rack and hit the highway.” How’s a Sheboygan-to-Denver road trip sound this July? Scrape together $21,995, and the rest of the summer of 2016 could belong to you, your ’76 ‘Vette, and your cherished water pipe.
“The Spirit of ’76” is C/D’s 4th-of-July holiday-weekend series highlighting some of the most awesome cars for sale from our nation’s bicentennial year.
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Saturday, 2 July 2016
The Spirit of ’76: Why This 1976 Porsche 911 Turbo Is the Bluest of Blue Chips
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Porsche wasn’t the first to apply turbocharging to production gasoline engines. GM had done it a decade before with both the Chevy Corvair and the Oldsmobile Jetfire. Which, in fact, means the 930 was actually the second production turbocharged flat-six. But while GM quickly abandoned the idea and didn’t return to it until the 1980s, once Porsche adopted turbochargers, it never let go. And to this day, its most broadly notorious turbocharged car is its first: the 930.
After the overwhelming success of the turbocharged twelve-cylinder 917/10 and 917/30 Can-Am cars, Porsche delved deep into forced-induction flat-sixes with its racing machines, starting with the 934 and 935 sports cars (which the 930 was originally developed to homologate) and the 936 prototype. Turbocharged boxer sixes ruled the Porsche racing roost through the 911 GT1, winning Le Mans outright in both prototypes (936, 956, 962, WSC-95) and outrageous derivations of production cars (Kremer 935K3, 911 GT1). The 930—originally badged as the “Turbo Carrera”—carried the banner of Porsche motorsport like no other production automobile from Zuffenhausen until the arrival of the 993 GT2, a car which was fundamentally a return to the basic rear-drive, big power, kill-yourself, homologation-special concept of the 930.
Porsche combined the knowledge it gleaned from both the 930 program and its racing cousins to build the mythic 959, the most technologically advanced car of the 1980s. In short, Porsche’s modern era truly began in the mid-1970s, with the development of the 930 on one side and the so-called “transaxle cars” on the other. And in an age of massive collector-car inflation, 930 prices have risen harder and faster than most, partially due to its significance and partially because of its reputation as a tricky-to-handle widow-maker prone to sort the poseur chaff out with a remarkable quickness.
Not long ago, a nice first-gen 911 Turbo could be had for around $30,000. They’ve more than tripled in value since, and if current asking prices are any indicator, they’re not done moving. A friend of ours is unloading a Turbo he’s owned for twelve years because he feels like it’s too valuable to drive in the manner he enjoys driving it. In short, the market for these suckers has gone absolutely bonkers. But in the spirit of ’76 — profoundly a strange era marked by airbrushed vans, subpar marijuana, Hamm’s beer, cutoffs, and perforated half-shirts — we’d like to present to you a 1976 911 Turbo with the positively cranium-shattering asking price of $259,000.
This particular example, according to the eBay listing, was the very first 930 ordered in the U.S. It still wears its original blue California vanity plate, reading simply, “930.” As-ordered options included 15×8-inch front and 15×9-inch rear wheels, a Becker Mexico tape deck, a sunroof, and a limited-slip differential. The original owner plunked down $29,564.80 in late 1975. The car itself was shipped in January of 1976—the 63rd 930 constructed—and the owner, Ronald Resch, took delivery on February 7. It appears that since then, the car has basically been treated like a garage queen, logging on average about 1600 miles per year.
Given the car’s value and purported originality, we sadly don’t expect it to log too many more. The 930 is one of the Malaise Era’s few true blue-chip investments, though we might point out that, had you instead purchased a house in late ’75/early ’76, it’s definitely possible (in some parts of the country at least) to have made more money on real estate. But let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather die in a 930 than in a house fire?
“The Spirit of ’76” is C/D’s 4th-of-July holiday-weekend series highlighting some of the most awesome cars for sale from our nation’s bicentennial year.
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