Junkyard Gold Episode and G3s

They say if you live long enough, you're liable to see anything. I'm 63 and at least think I've heard everything now.

Motor Trend is testing a new video series called Junkyard Gold starring Thom Taylor and Steve Magnante (also known as Magneto, its easier to spell). Thom says he's a hot rod designer and Executive Editor of Hot Rod. He's kinda the heir apparent to Gray Baskerville with knowledge about old hotrods and what constitutes "cool", at least from a California standpoint (dislcaimer: that's my opinion).

The series is supposed to be about Thom and Magneto going through old junkyards with classic tin. Anyway, about 2:30 into the video what to my wondering ears do I hear, but Taylor saying something about finding being happy "finding an S3 Laguna, R/T or Mach 1 Mustang".

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Someone from the exalted Hot Rod admitting an S3 Laguna might be cool???????????????????????? Boy this global climate change might really be real. I played it several times over to be sure I heard it right. Thom and Magneto went on to comment about all the cool stuff they found, although they didn't find the S3.

Ok, I gotta be honest here. Being an old fart, I remember the days when ACES wouldn't even acknowledge an S3,,,even though my 74 S3 has a badge that clearly says CHEVELLE on the front. So I still bear a grudge. I did actually meet Johnny Hunkins and the 75 S3 he built for Popular Hot Rodding which was a definite cool car. But Johnny also said responses to PHR were many of "WFT are you doing".

Perhaps everything old is really new again. I've got as many comments about my S3 as I did on my 65 Malibu SS. Actually it seems like a lot of people knew what a 65 Malibu was,,,but so many more didn't even know Chevrolet made a performance Chevelle in the 70s.

Ok, so Thom Taylor goes in the quite possibly cool category. Lets wait until we see an S3 in his driveway for the final decision!

Sounds cool, but I'm not going to get excited until they actually come through and do a G3, since there's still way too many groups that look down on them, even though my Monte gets more attention at cruises than the usual G2's.

Johnny's ahead of his time in his appreciation of G3's.  Unfortunately, the problem with being ahead of your time is that you're ahead of your time.

I still think it's generational. A lot of older guys just hate anything seventies. And the truth is they are stuck in 1972 and behind the times. To a 20 year old a 90 Mustang GT is a "classic"
Most folks that came of age after the muscle era love the things. I can't stop for gas without young folks taking pics of either car.
I'm also seeing a lot more activity on FB 73-77 pages. Thousands of members of those groups, most under 50 and a good chunk much younger than that.

It's surprising to me how popular they seem to be getting.

And Tony Angelo who does one of the shows on the Hot Rod Network just bought a 74 Malibu for himself. That will be interesting.

Click the link to see what he said on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/p/BZt-m9onRtT/?hl=en&taken-by=tangelo96

sportster_restorer wrote:
Ok, I gotta be honest here. Being an old fart, I remember the days when ACES wouldn't even acknowledge an S3,,,even though my 74 S3 has a badge that clearly says CHEVELLE on the front. So I still bear a grudge. I did actually meet Johnny Hunkins and the 75 S3 he built for Popular Hot Rodding which was a definite cool car. But Johnny also said responses to PHR were many of "WFT are you doing".

Ok, so Thom Taylor goes in the quite possibly cool category. Lets wait until we see an S3 in his driveway for the final decision!

As far as ACES, they went the way of the dinosaur. I had a couple of conversations with Chuck Hansen when he was trying to change the culture of ACES. He was doing his best to get G3 guys to join, but was pretty pissed that his efforts were being thwarted by snobby ***holes in the club.
He tried and failed and now they're defunct. Kinda sad because he's a really good dude. He even had a few G3s and really believed that they were gonna be popular eventually.

Just all the more reason to get these cars out there. Take them to shows no matter if they are no finished or not perfect. Every time I have mine out people stop, look and tell their buddy about the one so and so had and how they'd like to have one to build. Mostly nascar comes out of their mouths but people are noticing.

About time...we all knew they were cool before it was cool to think they were cool.

LOL

Damon23 wrote:Just all the more reason to get these cars out there. Take them to shows no matter if they are no finished or not perfect. Every time I have mine out people stop, look and tell their buddy about the one so and so had and how they'd like to have one to build. Mostly nascar comes out of their mouths but people are noticing.  

Amen, I do it every chance i get. Shows, a simple cruise on a nice day, get them out there! The car can be prettied up later.

Thats awesome!! Every time when I can get out with mine people are noticing and complimentary. I find the baby boomers ( with 72 and older vehicles) are usually the stick in the mud attitude. Hence why not many youth want to be apart of their attitude...

I've been driving mine to work everyday I get a chance and average 250 a week when I do so. In fact I drove it today and plan on driving it the rest of the week because it's suppose to be nice out.

My experience has been that the ones that look at it more than others are the young men that are about 13-15 or so. I get thumbs up quite often when I have mine out and it makes me feel pretty good that I'm ahead of the curve on these cars.  

I really don't get the boomer hate. I don't really care for older cars, and by older I mean pretty much anything pre 1960. They are beautiful cars, but I don't think they are worth nearly what they cost, and I sure as hell don't want to drive most of them.

I've had several old cars and they suck to drive. I think it's hilarious that a guy buys a 1940,50,60 whatever and then spends tens of thousand of dollars to "upgrade" that car with equipment we already have on our 5k cars. Disc brakes, power steering, AC, better suspension etc etc

I get out to a car show, and 70s and 80s cars are starting to show up in force. The boomers sit in the corner and grumble. Funny and sad.

I agree about driving old cars....and they DO drive like old cars !  I get some nice comments on my '75 Elco, when at the gas station etc.  It's a part time daily driver. Gotta have fun on week days too ya know ! Quicker steering boxes is mostly what I use in the G3s these days.
My fooling with cars goes back to the late 30s models, '37 Ford pickup/ Chrysler hemi powered etc and '40 Fords with Caddy & Olds engines. ( wish I had all those flat head Ford engines I tossed !!)  I'm on my 2nd G3 Chevelle, and 4th G3 Elco

I also have a 65 Mailbu SS and 67 Mustang. Both have drums all around. And they drive like drums. A lot of the snobs don't seem to remember that!

When I've had a few discussion with the critics, I usually ask "Do you think a 94 - 96 Impala SS is cool and handles pretty well?" Most times I get a "Sure those were cool" and then I'll point out that the Impala SS suspension is a clone of my 74 Laguna's except for the disc brake rear. I'll usually get a puzzled look in return,,,like "Did they really base those cool Impalas on those mid 70s boats?????" Yepper,,,a lot of the suspension is the same.

The market has changed. Tony Angelo's comments seem to support that. 68-72 Chevelles,,,even rustbuckets, are going through the roof as so many parts are available to make SS454 clones. G3s are getting more popular as the smog laws don't really pertain to the 73s and 74s, and the 75s and 77s are starting to roll off the smog test rules. Here in Texas, most inspection techs don't even check for cats anymore. Even so, you put an LS motor even with cats and it will blow clean. If it doesn't have an OBDII port, most techs just give you a puzzled look.

sportster_restorer wrote:When I've had a few discussion with the critics, I usually ask "Do you think a 94 - 96 Impala SS is cool and handles pretty well?" Most times I get a "Sure those were cool" and then I'll point out that the Impala SS suspension is a clone of my 74 Laguna's except for the disc brake rear. I'll usually get a puzzled look in return,,,like "Did they really base those cool Impalas on those mid 70s boats?????" Yepper,,,a lot of the suspension is the same.

Well played, sir!

I'll be using that one myself in the future.

You have to love when you get that stand off attitude. I tell em Im buying the same Holley carbs and BF Goodrich tires as them and mine runs and drives better. Sh#t, they are 40 year old cars and still out there driving around! They can at least respect that.

Engines are what makes cars popular. From the Tri-5s with the first SBC to the '70 LS6 Chevelle, the more iconic the top of the line engine was the more popular the whole body style is. The B-body Impala is an example. I absolutely loved my '95, but you put a set of stock steel wheels with hub caps and a bunch of chrome on it, it looks hideous. It was the LT1 that made that car a legend.

If you apply that to our cars, the Feds killed the power, plus the ratings went from gross to net. I firmly believe that the G3 is just as pleasing to the eye as any other Chevelle, even more so in some cases. Most G1 and G2 Chevelles came with weak in line 6 cylinders or low end V8s with very little difference in power from our cars. There is no question that the brakes and suspension on the G3 is far superior to the other generations. With modern performance parts, a G3 can be just as fast as a LS6 big block (or even faster) and smoke it on a road corse. Short story long, modern performance upgrades are overcoming the performance gap, bringing our cars to the forefront.

Podor wrote:Engines are what makes cars popular. From the Tri-5s with the first SBC to the '70 LS6 Chevelle, the more iconic the top of the line engine was the more popular the whole body style is. The B-body Impala is an example. I absolutely loved my '95, but you put a set of stock steel wheels with hub caps and a bunch of chrome on it, it looks hideous. It was the LT1 that made that car a legend.

I think that only goes so far.  The Turbo V6 didn't make the Regal GNX famous, the LS1 didn't save the 98-02 Camaro, and the LS3 didn't save the blandly-restyled GTO.  Body style and timing are large factors as well -- it also has to have the right look, and it has to be at a time the buyers are ready for it.  The restyled Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers are examples -- they sell like hotcakes, but they're running engine platforms that already existed in other models for some time.

thatfnthing wrote:

Podor wrote:Engines are what makes cars popular. From the Tri-5s with the first SBC to the '70 LS6 Chevelle, the more iconic the top of the line engine was the more popular the whole body style is. The B-body Impala is an example. I absolutely loved my '95, but you put a set of stock steel wheels with hub caps and a bunch of chrome on it, it looks hideous. It was the LT1 that made that car a legend.

I think that only goes so far.  The Turbo V6 didn't make the Regal GNX famous, the LS1 didn't save the 98-02 Camaro, and the LS3 didn't save the blandly-restyled GTO.  Body style and timing are large factors as well -- it also has to have the right look, and it has to be at a time the buyers are ready for it.  The restyled Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers are examples -- they sell like hotcakes, but they're running engine platforms that already existed in other models for some time.

Time is what will be the true judge. You could buy a nice G2 Chevelle from $500 to $3000 20 years ago. I'm kicking myself now for what I passed up then. I would bet that the cars you listed will be worth big bucks in the future. The GNX, GN and T-Types are already on their way to being some of the most valuable cars from the '80s. Even the Camaro and GTO are still commanding high dollar. The new cars are setting a path for themselves now too. The Voodoo in the Mustang, the LT1/LT4 and the Demon will no doubt be legends, and already are.

thatfnthing wrote:

Podor wrote:Engines are what makes cars popular. From the Tri-5s with the first SBC to the '70 LS6 Chevelle, the more iconic the top of the line engine was the more popular the whole body style is. The B-body Impala is an example. I absolutely loved my '95, but you put a set of stock steel wheels with hub caps and a bunch of chrome on it, it looks hideous. It was the LT1 that made that car a legend.

I think that only goes so far.  The Turbo V6 didn't make the Regal GNX famous, the LS1 didn't save the 98-02 Camaro, and the LS3 didn't save the blandly-restyled GTO.  Body style and timing are large factors as well -- it also has to have the right look, and it has to be at a time the buyers are ready for it.  The restyled Mustangs, Camaros and Challengers are examples -- they sell like hotcakes, but they're running engine platforms that already existed in other models for some time.

Time is what will be the true judge. You could buy a nice G2 Chevelle from $500 to $3000 20 years ago. I'm kicking myself now for what I passed up then. I would bet that the cars you listed will be worth big bucks in the future. The GNX, GN and T-Types are already on their way to being some of the most valuable cars from the '80s. Even the Camaro and GTO are still commanding high dollar. The new cars are setting a path for themselves now too. The Voodoo in the Mustang, the LT1/LT4 and the Demon will no doubt be legends, and already are.

Podor wrote:Time is what will be the true judge. You could buy a nice G2 Chevelle from $500 to $3000 20 years ago. I'm kicking myself now for what I passed up then. I would bet that the cars you listed will be worth big bucks in the future. The GNX, GN and T-Types are already on their way to being some of the most valuable cars from the '80s. Even the Camaro and GTO are still commanding high dollar. The new cars are setting a path for themselves now too. The Voodoo in the Mustang, the LT1/LT4 and the Demon will no doubt be legends, and already are.

Worth big bucks to collectors, yes.  No doubt.  However, I thought your point was that the new engine platforms were solely what made those cars sell well in the first place when they were introduced.  Therefore my examples were of vehicles that launched with new, innovative engines and still did not sell well.  Along the same lines, when the newly restyled Mustangs/Camaros/Challengers were introduced, they came with the standard performance engines that had already been available in other models and they sold well.  They have more exotic stuff NOW, but they did not at their start, and they still sold well.  The only new thing was the body style.

So did I misunderstand your original point, or are you now moving the goal posts?  

Sorry, I was referring to how a car becomes collectable. My thought is as people get to the point when they can afford a car for a hobby, they go for the ones that had the iconic powertrains they remember, which then makes the whole body style more popular. Our poor cars were never know for big power. I'm thinking that's why they have been in the shadow of their older brothers. I would bet that if you could get a 450 hp big block in a '74 Chevelle from the factory, they would be just as expensive today as the others.

I don't necessarily disagree with either of you, but my theory is that a lot of car guys are like lemmings.

They don't buy the car that they think is cool, they buy the car that they think OTHERS think are cool. Regardless of body style, engine or otherwise.

The Mopar craze for example. Collectible Mopars are expensive now because they are rare.
They are rare because nobody wanted them when they were new. I think that's because the weren't super good looking nor were they very good performers. 60s and 70s Mopars were famous for being clunky and unreliable.

Nobody around here in the 80s wanted a Mopar of any year because we all thought they were butt-ugly and slow. Especially the 72 and up cars which were hideous. We lumped Chrysler products right in there with AMC.
Flash forward to the 2000s. Prices go through the roof and suddenly EVERYBODY was a Mopar guy and had been their whooooole lives. I don't think I even heard the term MOPAR until the late 90s sometime, and I sure as hell never heard anybody I knew say "Mopar or no car" until I heard some nitwit say it on Overhaulin' circa 2005.

It's my theory that a guy usually has a 68 Chevelle because he had one as a kid or he wants to impress the guy that did.

Its interesting prices and peoples thoughts on cool cars... Many talk of what is valued high predominatly may in fact be dropping in value as another generation has little attachment to nostalgia on those vehicles... 40, and 50's vehicles for instance and to a certain degree 60's... not to mention the group who feel that nothing beyond 72 is worth talking or acknowledging. Hence very little growth with a younger audience in participation. All be it many factors, costs, lack of knowledge, insurance, technology, attitudes, etc...Long live the G3

Agreed. The most interesting thing for me to watch lately has been the decline of the street rod while the "rat" rises.

The street rod crowd (My father-in-law and his friends) started buying their cars in the 70s and 80s, joind the NSRA and began seriously modifying their cars. They spent huge money over the years on mods and high dollar paint and body work.
Many of them are well into their 70s now and trying to sell. They think their cars are worth 30-40-50 thousand dollars, but they can't find anyone to buy them except guys their age who can no longer afford them or are trying to sell theirs too.
Meanwhile the "rat" guys are mostly in the 40 and under crowd who love cars of the same years but have no interest whatsoever in a car they believe to be "way over done"
They really seem to hate each other sometimes.

A perfect example of a generation gap. They all love 1900-1950s cars but have a totally different approach as to how they should look and drive and what they are worth.

I have noticed the "Buy what they like" crowd. I buy what I think is cool to me and I buy cars for the body style so I can make what I want. I have several cars (1970 Camaro which is getting the LS7 that's in my garage, 1976 Laguna S3 which is getting a 496bbc and T56, 1986 C10 short bed with
406, 2001 SLP SS Camaro, 2008 H2 Hummer). Mopar people are funny. I was one since I was a child. My 1970 Super Bee was a POS. Like the guy from Graveyard Carz said, "A bad handling Camaro is still better than a torsion bar Cuda." I can't wait to get my Laguna together and get it on the road.

Podor wrote:Sorry, I was referring to how a car becomes collectable. My thought is as people get to the point when they can afford a car for a hobby, they go for the ones that had the iconic powertrains they remember, which then makes the whole body style more popular. Our poor cars were never know for big power. I'm thinking that's why they have been in the shadow of their older brothers. I would bet that if you could get a 450 hp big block in a '74 Chevelle from the factory, they would be just as expensive today as the others.  

Gotcha. I misunderstood where you were headed. I agree 100%.