Jim Koscs

A few years ago, Hagerty columnist Jay Leno reconstructed a 1931 Duesenberg Model J LaGrande Coupe, one of six built in the style. The original body had been removed and scrapped in the 1940s by a Ford-Lincoln dealer in Indianapolis, which replaced…

Danny Farcas has eight first-generation Ford Escorts. Eight. There’s more too it but, seriously, that’s what you need to know about this 29-year-old Ohio father of two. Farcas has become a rescuer, preserver, and historian for a four-decade-old Ford…

Brad Zeidler is cheerfully realistic when it comes to why he can easily find good used parts for his 1981 Oldsmobile, and cheaply on eBay, no less. “What kind of idiot would restore one of these cars?” he jokes. Zeidler’s Oldsmobile Omega is one of…

In the early Seventies, a Cadillac dealership might have seemed a bit of a humdrum place to work for a young tech with hot-rodding heating up his blood. At that point in the brand’s history, its connections to racing and performance were either two…

Many Hot Wheels fans say that playing with the 1/64-scale models as kids sparked a lifelong love of cars and, for some, an automotive career. In Somerset, England, Lee Johnstone took the opposite route. The winner of the 2021 Hot Wheels Legends Tour,…

For a heart-stopping moment in 1990, Martin Peters nearly became the headline of a grisly story in which the Eastern and Western German automotive worlds collided—quite literally—on the Autobahn. Peters, then head writer for MotorWeek, was in Germany…

Perhaps you did not hear about the “incident” at a very small California track. Of course, that might be because the track is so small it cannot be found on any map. A racer named Bobby Johnson, barreling down a short mountain course in a Lancia 037…

The entire classic and collector car hobby is built on the concept of preservation and restoration. It’s the reason many readers come to the Historic Vehicle Association website each day. It’s written right into the HVA’s mission: “Through the…

The unmistakable sound of a Chevy big-block through Corvette exhausts would not stand out as unusual at a New York Chevy dealer’s Corvette show. But when a few showgoers turned their heads to glance at the “car” they heard approaching the event back…

Think, for a moment, what you would do if Mazda sent you a new but lightly damaged Miata, along with a simple instruction: “Do something interesting with it.” This happened to Jim Simpson back in 1992, when just such a car arrived at his auto…

You’ll find no shortage of YouTube videos showing hiked-up Porsche 911s blasting along forestry roads, desert trails, and beaches. Getting dirty, and loving it. Captured on GoPros, the drivers look giddy as 11-year-olds getting their first ride on…

In some automotive circles, “JDM” is a badge of honor and a status symbol. The letters, which stand for Japanese Domestic Market, apply to right-hand drive versions of cars that Japanese makers sold in the U.S., as well as Japanese models that were…

Jon Miller wasn’t about to cut up pieces of cardboard and glue them to his restored DeLorean to somehow make it look like the Time Machine from the 1985 blockbuster movie, Back to the Future. That was just a suggestion from his wife, Amanda, in…

[Editor's Note: This story on the much-modified third-gen Pontiac Firebird that we recently highlighted as a Hemmings Find of the Day comes to us from contributor Jim Koscs.] As a kid, did you try to draw cars that combined features of several…

What’s the first car you remember as a kid? Some could probably say there was a ’57 Corvette or ’61 Jaguar E-Type in the family garage to inspire a lifetime of car addiction. For most, though, their first car memory was likely the family sedan,…

Look! Out on the road! It’s a car! It’s a plane! It’s the 2JetZ! Wait a minute, what the heck is a 2JetZ? In case you hadn’t heard, 2JetZ is the one-of-a-kind custom built by Luis Rodriguez in Hope, New Jersey, that won the Hot Wheels Legends Tour in…

In the parking lot of a Starbucks in Edgewater, New Jersey, a suburb across the Hudson River from Manhattan, a huge sedan rolls up and comes to a stop. Its hue, as dark as Darth Vader’s armour, perfectly suits a limousine built in what US President…

In the 1960s and early ’70s, the two-wheel dream machine for many children in the US and Canada was a Schwinn Sting-Ray, a bicycle that put the spirit – if not the power – of a Chevelle SS 396 at their feet. And somewhere between their childhood and…

[This article originally published on the BBC Autos website, which is now defunct. It has been preserved on Authory.] One should not use the term “space age” frivolously with Robert Mueller. Some of the 33 years Mueller spent with aerospace firm…

There’s no such thing as “too much” or “over the top” when it comes to these chariots of the Neo-Classic Age.