2025 Greenwood Car Show: British Sports Cars (With Mostly American Engines)

After World War II the automotive world noticed that England was building nimble sports cars that were nevertheless under-powered and that tended to overheat or see their electrical systems fail pretty quickly. Meanwhile in the United States we were building powerful, reliable V-8 engines, but no sports cars. That's why some of the most famous cars sports are British-built but American powered.

 

Behold, an authentic copy of the car every enthusiast dreams about: A 1964 Ford AC Cobra by Carroll Shelby. At auction, this 289 V-8 powered Cobra would go for about $900,000. If it were the later 427-powered car, it would command at least $1.5 million.

 

You can be forgiven if you've never heard of the British sports car company TVR. They've never made a lot of cars. This TVR Griffith was also powered by the 289 Ford. The first two series of cars had fiberglass bodies, and only 251 cars were sold between 1964 and 1966. This is third-series car from 1966, and it has a hand-made steel body. Only ten were made.

 

I didn't think I'd ever see an Allard J2. And actually I still haven't seen one - this is a replica. The Allard was a British make originally powered by a flathead V-8 made in England by British Ford. Only 90 were made between 1950 and 1952.

 

And finally, a car that's all-British: a 1947 Jaguar Mark IV. If this car is really in good working order, then the owner is a genius.

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2025 Greenwood Car Show: Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth

Perfect weather for this year's Greenwood car show, and it was bigger than ever! Let's kick it off with my favorites: Chrysler-Dodge-Plymouth.

 

For the fourth and last year of the Dodge Super Bee, 1971, it was made an option on the Charger; sort of a budget Charger R/T. A very rare car.

  

 

I've written about the 1966 Plymouth Satellite pictured above as far back as the 2018 show. I'm sure most people don't realize that this plain-looking car is one of the show's most valuable entries. The 426 hemi was available only from 1966 to 1971, and the 1966 edition is considered the best. This car is certainly worth six figures.

Pictured below the hemi in yellow is a 1967 Plymouth GTX. The GTX was a new premium edition of the same car as the Satellite, but standard with the 440 "Super Commando" V-8 rated at 375 hp. You could order an even more powerful 426 hemi in the GTX - for about $600 more than the 440!

  

 

Even this little 1966 Plymouth Barracuda came with a V-8. In this case the 273.

 

 

In 1970 the Dart was Dodge's cheapest car. But like everything else then, you could option it out with a pretty ferocious engine. In the case of this Dart GT, a 340 V-8 rated at 275 hp.

 

Between 1951 and 1958, full-size Chrysler products were equipped with the company's original hemi-head engines. These are so popular today that even very ordinary DeSoto sedans are being restored. This 1956 Fireflight coupe has the 331 hemi with dual-quad carbs rated at 255 hp.

 

 

 

Time was when cab over engine trucks like this were seldom seen outside of junkyards. But trucks like this 1955 Dodge COE K-Series are starting to show up at a lot of car shows. They're just cool.

 

I love the old business coupes, like this 1950 Dodge. That's an awful lot of car for a single bench seat.

 

 

This 1935 Chrysler Airflow was ahead of its time. But they didn't sell many. The public thought it was just too weird.

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1946 Willys Jeep CJ-2A

A 1941 Chevy coupe weights 3,025 lbs. So it's not clear what the Army was thinking when it asked for designs for a general purpose vehicle weighing no more than 1,300 lbs. Bending to reality, the spec was changed but still limited to only 2,160 lbs. That's most of the reason why the initial Jeep contracts were awarded to American Bantam and Willys-Overland, makers of America's smallest cars.

Four levers?! To the right of the driver, the first lever is the gear shift. The second takes the front axle in and out of four-wheel drive. The third shifts the transfer case between high-range gears (good for driving on pavement) and low-range gears (good for driving off-road). The little lever on the floor is for overdrive.

The civilian model (hence the model name "CV") is the same as the military model, except that the military model doesn't have the gate on the back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1980 Cadillac Seville

"That is the ugliest car I've seen." That was my father's reaction upon seeing the new "bustleback" Cadillac Seville in the fall of 1979. I'm sure that was an exaggeration. After all, dad could remember a lot of Detroit ugly, like the 1958 Dodge.

I haven't seen one of these in quite a while. They were built on the same reliable front-drive platform as the Eldorado and Oldsmobile Toronado, but most of them had truly terrible engines: the Olds diesel or Cadillac's failed "variable displacement" V-8. Weirdly, both Chrysler and Ford decided to copycat this car in the form of the 1981 Imperial and 1982 Lincoln Continental.

 

 

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1973 Saab Sonnet III

It's from Saab, so it's gonna be weird. Designed to compete in America with MG and Triumph, the Sonnet sold less than 2,000 copies per year in the 1970s, and I think this is the only one I've ever seen. Too bad it's not running; restoring it will be no small task.

So what you've got is a fiberglass body over a Saab front-wheel drive chassis, powered by a Ford 1.7 liter V4. Apparently it was a pretty fast car. Observations:
* I believe this car came with a monstrous front bumper to meet the new 1973 US safety standards, but the owner of this one has tossed it.
* Note that the "hood" on this car is just a small panel. The earlier, much rarer Sonnet II had a hinge that allowed the whole front clip of the car to open. But if you want to do any major maintenance on this Sonnet III you will just have to, ah, take the whole front end of the car apart.

 

 

 

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