Tag Archives: HISTORIC

Awesomely Weird: This 1970s Chevrolet Parts Film Stars Evel Knievel And Literally Makes No Sense

Apr 24, 2021Apex Video, BangShift APEX, BangShift News, FUNNY STUFF, HISTORIC, MISC, Videos

Awesomely Weird: This 1970s Chevrolet Parts Film Stars Evel Knievel And Literally Makes No Sense

We’re guessing someone lost their job for this one. You are going to watch this 1970s Chevrolet parts film which stars Evel Knivel and makes literally no sense at all. The theme of the film is “conflict” and it is illustrated by a series of scenes where animals eat other animals, black and white movies are shown, and Evel Knievel jumps stuff on his motorcycle, sometimes crashing, sometimes not. Throw in a dose of 1970s Anchoman-level hilarity with a bikini-clad woman, and you have yourself one of the most singular odd things we have ever seen.

Make no mistake, Knievel would never turn down a gig, especially one with Chevrolet that likely was a great payday for reading some cue-cards. The company definitely did not hire him for his suave acting ability because this dude is straight up stiff while narrating the action. By action, we mean the bizarre things we are shown on screen.

Oddly, while Chevrolet parts are mentioned a handful of times there’s barely (if ever) a Chevrolet car shown as a prop in the film. This whole thing is some weirdo theater of the mind that was likely schemed up by an executive’s kid. “Hey Johnson, get my son a job in the media department and let him run wild!”

Obviously, Knievel was majorly famous at this point and his star only grew bigger. Note that he mentions that someday, “I’ll jump a mile….” we all know how that quest ended.

You have to see this one to believe it.

Press play to see the weirdest Chevrolet Parts video ever made, starring Evel Knievel!

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Hot Hatch History: This Look Back At The Hot Hatches Of The 1970s Is Great – No, The Golf GTI Was Not First

Dec 31, 2020Apex Video, BangShift APEX, BangShift News, HISTORIC, MISC, RACING & ACTION, Videos

Hot Hatch History: This Look Back At The Hot Hatches Of The 1970s Is Great – No, The Golf GTI Was Not First

The idea of a “hot hatchback” has been part of the automotive landscape from the birth of the Mini-Cooper and this video from the fine folks at Goodwood which outlines the history of the concept and all the foundational models of the 1970s is spectacular. There’s something fun about a fast little hatchback car and buyers have bought millions and millions of them over the years. The Golf GTI is absolutely the most famous hot hatch of the early days but it was not the first one out. Companies like Simca, Renault, and others threw into the concept of the sports minded small car before the Germans definitively defined the genre of car.

We look at the automotive landscape today and so few of what we look at has any sort of sensical relationship to things that were made in the 1970s but the hot hatch backs still have the same DNA they always did and they are better in so many was than they ever were.

As a guy who spent a few years in college racing a hotted up VW Rabbit with my friends in the SCCA, perhaps my opinion is biased to the value and entertainment of these little things but the video below tells a really cool story in a very well laid out, researched, and appealing delivery.

Automotive history is the best history.

Press play below to see this cool video on the history of the hot hatchback!

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It Could Be You: This 1949 Chevrolet Film Explained The National Car Shortage And How They Were Fixing It

Dec 10, 2020Apex Video, BangShift APEX, BangShift News, HISTORIC, MISC, Videos

It Could Be You: This 1949 Chevrolet Film Explained The National Car Shortage And How They Were Fixing It

This is a pretty amazing thing to watch and something that seems incomprehensible to put into the modern context. As we have talked about before, by the late 1940s car companies were in a really bad spot. People wanted cars that they simply could not make. After the nation transformed itself into an armory and car production basically stopped in the early 1940s, a massive swell of demand for new cars built over the ensuing years. That well broke over top of the industry once the war was over and there was not a single company that could keep up. This film by Chevrolet attempts to explain the situation, mitigate the situation, and let people know that they are doing the best they can to get things patched up.

Just think about the fact that basically every supplier that was making parts for Chevrolet was then making parts for the war. The place that was making door handles was likely making something else so when Chevy needed door handles, they couldn’t get them. Master cylinders, headlight bezels, etc. It was not because they weren’t willing to build cars, they literally could not get the parts.

This is a really interesting educational strategy that was employed by Chevrolet. Rather than simply tell everyone to hang on a second, they went the extra mile to show people what the concerns and issues were and how they were going to remedy them. Just an interesting moment in automotive history.

Press play below to see this 1949 Chevrolet film, “It Could Be You” –

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Godzilla Dyno Fun: Brian Wolfe Rips A 446ci Godzilla With Ported Heads, A New Cam, Intake, Calibration – Big Power

It’s The Van, Man: This 1975 Chevrolet Promotional Film Hawking Vans Is Pretty Awesome

Oct 06, 2020BangShift XL, HISTORIC, MISC, Videos, XL Videos

It’s The Van, Man: This 1975 Chevrolet Promotional Film Hawking Vans Is Pretty Awesome

What’s old is cool again, right? In many ways that line is the truth for all automotive enthusiasts who love the machines that carried us around decades ago, but the van world is booming right now. Classic vans hark back to the 1970s decade when they became a massive subset of the aftermarket and developed their own culture around them. This video is not so much about the vanning counter culture as much as it is about the primary market Chevrolet was trying to reach, the practical one. No shag carpets here but a study in why these vehicles were great for local cargo hauling and other work.

It’s weird that we’re kind of at the end of the traditional van era, most models have been discontinued in favor of smaller, European-style low floor jobs like the Ford Transit and others. There’s something great about the full-framed, tough as nails vans that we all grew up with, though.

We’re not sue if this video was shown by dealers at the dealership, sent to large fleet customers or what but we’re telling you right now that we want that red and white cargo van with loads of horsepower and an engine swap right now. Funny how the yeoman vehicles of the past become the cool stuff of the present, right?

Press play below to see this 1975 Chevrolet promotional film hawking vans!

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Transmission Tech Video: Reassembling A Chrysler A-833 Four Speed – Grabbing Gears The Old School Way

Historical Footage: A Look Into One Of Toronto’s More Notorious Street Racers And His 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator…That Was A Former Ford Of Canada Drag Car!

Oct 03, 20201320 Videos, BangShift 1320, HISTORIC, Videos

Historical Footage: A Look Into One Of Toronto’s More Notorious Street Racers And His 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator…That Was A Former Ford Of Canada Drag Car!

Two cars line up on a backroad somewhere near Toronto, Canada in 1979. This is your average street race…a few bystanders, those in the know. No heavy crowds and nobody else nearby to cause a problem. Two cars, a 1969 Camaro and a 1970 Mercury Cougar, line up. The Camaro’s situation isn’t known, but the Cougar is well documented: the driver is Dieter Scharschmidt, a well-known street racer, and the Mercury isn’t anything to trifle with. A Cougar Eliminator was already a pretty stout piece, but the Cougar had started life as one of Ford of Canada’s racing team cars, a H/S runner wheeled by Vic Beleny and Bruce Fitzgibbon. Scharschmidt bought the car minus engine and trans in 1971 after Ford of Canada decided to let the team go amid the 75% racing budget cuts within the company and got to work building it into something wicked. Without question, his money was well spent because between the time he got the car finished to when he sold it in 1983, it was nearly unbeaten…”nearly” because it did record a loss, but Scharschmidt vehemently claims that the other car jumped the start.

Depending on what you read, either the Mercury was restored back to it’s original racing setup (complete with a 428 CJ that would be sure to put the fear of God into any street warrior) or was totaled out sometime in the mid-1990s and was never heard from again…tracking the story gets difficult, so if anyone knows the truth, we’d like to hear it. Meanwhile, check out some footage of the Eliminator putting in work in 1979:

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Motion Raceworks Is Building An 8 Second Car In 8 Days!!! Meet El Toro!

“You might want to get back in it!”: Check Out The Story Of The F-106 Delta Dart “Cornfield Bomber”!

The Convair F-106 Delta Dart was a hot rod of the highest order when it came to interceptor aircraft. Mach 2.0 was just starting to reach the upper limits of the airspeed indicator (Mach 2.3 was officially the fastest it’d go), it had the pure 1950s delta-wing design going on, and it had one major downside of a delta-winged supersonic jet: when induced into a flat spin (where the wings are horizontal), the chances of recovery are minimal and require major man-handling of the aircraft’s weight forward and down for a successful recovery. What does it look like when that doesn’t happen? You know that scene in Top Gun where Maverick and Goose fly through Iceman’s jet wash? That happens.

For the then-Captain Gary Faust, a flat spin in a “Six” was the last possible place he ever wanted to be in. During aerial combat maneuver training over Montana on February 2, 1970, the F-106 went into a flat spin and at with 15,000 feet between the jet and the ground, Faust punched out and ejected. The force of the ejection, coupled with the weight shift of suddenly losing the weight of the pilot, pitched the Dart’s nose downward…and the aircraft recovered and flew off, pilotless, to the amazment of all of the pilots…and, most likely, the absolute annoyance of Captain Faust, who ended up landing near some mountains no worse for the wear. He was recovered by snowmobilers and brought to rescuers. The Delta Dart, on the other hand, was predicted to end up as a fireball, but instead glided into a snow-filled alfalfa field near Big Sandy, Montana, making a nearly-perfect belly landing, missing a stone wall by turning as if it had been piloted, and coming to rest in the snow, still running, the radar still sweeping.

What happened next was almost comedy: first, the local sheriff got a call from the farmer that an Air Force jet had landed in his field, was unoccupied and running, and could they please advise what to do. The sheriff drove out, found that the farmer hadn’t been warming himself up with whiskey, and got in touch with Malmstrom Air Force Base for instructions on how to shut down an F-106. At one point, the sheriff even climbed up onto the wing and was checking out the cockpit when the jet lurched forward…the snow would melt enough to allow the Delta Dart to shift a couple feet forward, and that was enough for the officer to abandon the plan. Instead, the Convair was allowed to exhaust it’s fuel before it was disassembled on-site and shipped back to Malmstrom AFB for repairs. Other than some torn outer skin, the F-106 was in pretty decent condition and was returned to service, flying until retirement in 1986. The aircraft, 58-0787, is now at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

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A Legend In His Own Words: This Feature On Smokey Yunick Is So Awesome As He’s The One Telling The Stories

Jun 24, 2020Apex Video, BangShift APEX, BangShift News, FUNNY STUFF, HISTORIC, MISC, RACING & ACTION, Videos

A Legend In His Own Words: This Feature On Smokey Yunick Is So Awesome As He’s The One Telling The Stories

There’s few things more awesome than seeing old video of a legend telling their own stories. Yes, this is a relatively short clip, lasting a total of about five minutes but it’s fantastic as we get to hear Smokey Yunick talk about his racing career and accomplishments. We’re pretty sure that this video comes from the old show, “The Exciting World of Speed and Beauty” which was Sunday morning must see TV back when we were kids.

Heck, we might have watch this show when it first came out but we definitely did not understand or appreciate the man who’s featured here back then. How could we? You have to know the guy’s story a little, know the guy’s attitude a little, and know the guys’s brilliance a little to really be enthralled with Smokey Yunick. It’s one of the funny things about being a racing legend, right? Outside the walls of the race track your life is pretty obscure. Inside the walls of the race track, you are a rock star of epic proportions.

Make sure you watch this one to the end because when Smokey starts showing off the engines, you’ll be as impressed as we were that he actually kept all this stuff! An amazing five minutes with one of the most awesome racing legends in American history –

Press play below to see this awesome short feature on Smokey Yunick in his own words

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Fun Video: Check Out This Home Movie Footage Showing A Trip To Santa Pod Raceway In 1972

History Lesson: The 1980s Front-Drive Offerings In The Name Of Performance

Jun 06, 2020HISTORIC, Videos

History Lesson: The 1980s Front-Drive Offerings In The Name Of Performance

Look into the past and you will see a lot of ghosts of cars past, cars that were meant to make an impact. Some did, some didn’t. They were everywhere, then suddenly they were nowhere to be found except in the most forgotten corners of the lots in BFE, U.S.A. Some of these cars could’ve been the first evolution for markets that existed later in life, if it wasn’t for manufacturers that didn’t take them seriously. Actually, scratch that…even if they did, the market didn’t. But let’s look at the subject matter…

Remember the Dodge Daytona? No, not the Charger…the front-drive K-car that tried like hell to give the Fox Mustang and the third-gen F-bodies something to think about. Considering that Chrysler had narrowly escaped Death’s scythe just a few years ago, it was impressive that the company had cranked out a competent hatchback coupe front-driver that had style, power, and sex appeal. If it wasn’t for the torque steer, Mopar was on par for yet another early take on hot FWD performance, along with the Shelby GLHS Charger and Omni, the Shelby CSX, and other hot takes. Mopar got Shelby to tweak their cars and you would think that with the hot turbocharged 2.2L four, that they would’ve stuck around a little longer than they did.

The Ford EXP is harder to quantify, but you have to understand: these things were EVERYWHERE for years, before they all suddenly turned to dust and ceased to exist. The EXP never really tried to be a true performance machine…you either bought one with a touch of luxury flair, or one with a touch of sporty flair. And unlike the Daytona, the EXP was a two-seater, which was a problem unto itself when it came to insuring it. Yeah…two-seater equals sports car, regardless of how mundane the roots are. It’s an Escort through and through, bug-eye or AeroEXP, and the benefits and problems of that base bled through. The EXP did have one thing going for it: for the size, it was properly useable for an all-around daily use. You had a huge cargo compartment, you had an engine that would move it…kind of…and if you didn’t try to kick it around, you had a competent, economical car that didn’t look bad.

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Monster Truck Mid-Air Collision: This Is One Of The Wildest Things We Have Ever Seen! 10 Tons Of Wreckage

May 22, 2020BangShift News, CRASH & BURN, HISTORIC, MISC, RACING & ACTION, Videos

Monster Truck Mid-Air Collision: This Is One Of The Wildest Things We Have Ever Seen! 10 Tons Of Wreckage

There’s always something awesome about seeing a “first”, right? We don’t me a global “first ever” we mean a, “Oh damn, never seen that before!” moment. We suspect you’ll share the same reaction that we had while watching this incredible monster truck mid-air collision between Snake Bite and Red Solo Truck on the beach at Wildwood, New Jersey back in 2016. It’s a combo of some interesting elements that make this one of the neatest monster truck videos we have seen in a long, long time.

The first element is the course itself. It is a back and forth snake-like affair and it is long! Right there on the sands of the beach in New Jersey, you can see an amusement park in the background and there’s not a single car to be crushed. There are jumps and obstacles but no cars to crush. Watching the big trucks slide and maneuver through the corners is really fun. The tires float on the sand nicely and the “inside/outside” layout of the turns makes it a really fun back and forth course where it seems one truck is ahead but the other makes time rapidly when on the inside of the corners.

The big table top jump is the finish line and in this video, both trucks get there at the same time and they are trying to fly over it in the same airspace. The contact and tumble is wild, made more dramatic by the fact it happened at dusk and the added flying sand is awesome.

Both guys walked away. The trucks seemingly did not.

Press play below to see this insane mid-air monster truck collision!

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