One of two notchback coupe Mustangs that both Ford Motor Company and Shelby American used as prototypes, the other being Little Red. Craig Jackson of Barrett-Jackson unveiled the newly restored Green Hornet at SEMA with Shell and Pennzoil. A one-of-two Shelby EXP500 prototype has made its just-off-a-restoration debut at SEMA 2019.The vehicle started life as a Lime Gold-painted testbed for Fords Mustang California Special, and featured a few distinct features that set it apart from the regular notchback coupe.Marchal fog lights were fitted to the grille; spin-and-click hood pins were installed on the vented hood; the rear tail panel had a larger spoiler; and the taillights were replaced with units from a 1965 Thunderbird.Once Ford had gotten its use out of the Mustang, they sent it over to Carroll Shelby to tinker with. Shelby immediately painted the vehicle in a wild metal-flake green paint and replaced the 390-cubic-inch V8 with a 428-c.i. unit with Conelec fuel injection. An in-house designed six-speed automatic and independent rear suspension was fitted to top it all off. All the changes meant the vehicle saw a zero-to-96-km/h time of just 5.7 seconds and a top speed of 252 km/h (157 miles per hour).Shelby American only built two notchback coupe versions of the GT500, and this green example is the twin to “Little Red,” a hardtop lost for years and just recently found.The cars name, incidentally, came from Bill Cosby the Billy Cosby. Cosby had been a long-time friend of Shelby, and when he first took a look at the Mustangs wild green colour, he dubbed it The Green Hornet, taking inspiration from the favourite superhero of the animated characters in Fat Albert.The vehicle was presented at SEMA 2019 by its owner, Craig Jackson, CEO of Barrett-Jackson auctions, and
Origin: Prototype Shelby ‘Green Hornet’ Mustang restored, unveiled at SEMA
restored
Smallest race car in history, Allard Atom, restored and up for sale
The Allard Atom, the smallest race car in the world, was a product of circumstance. Hemmings details in its blog how, in the 1950s in England, Ronnie Greene, the manager of a track in London called Wimbledon Speedway, noted there was a national thirst for automotive speedway racing and few tracks dedicated to the sport.He also noted that Wimbledon Speedway was designed for motorcycles and would not support a field of full-sized vehicles racing down it.So he tasked racer and founder of the London-based Allard Motor Company, Sydney Allard, with building a car that would use the 500-cc JAP engines common in racing motorcycles at the time and give the local race fans something else to cheer. With a wheelbase of four-and-a-half feet and a front track (the wider of the two) of three feet, the Allard Atom is hardly larger than a ride-on mower. But the 500-cc engine, which runs on pure methanol, was said to accelerate the car at the same rate as Formula 1 cars of the era, pushing its tiny body to a top speed of 150 mph (241 km/h). To save space for the driver and engine, there’s no transmission or brakes. Instead, drivers were expected to adjust speed in the corners. This was to be the first vehicle in the British ‘midget racing’ series. Unfortunately, only two Allard Atoms were ever made. One was crashed and FUBAR’d, and the other is right here. The last remaining Allard Atom has been fully restored and shows the original red-and-black colour scheme, punctuated with a gold star on the nose. It is scheduled to cross the block at Coys’ Blenheim Palace auction where it is expected to fetch from £10,000 to £15,000 ($17,000 to
Origin: Smallest race car in history, Allard Atom, restored and up for sale
Honda just restored this—classic Chevrolet pickup?
American Honda 60th Anniversary Chevy Delivery TruckHonda Honda corporates latest restoration efforts are of a less-than-usual subject, this 1961 Chevrolet Apache long-bed used to deliver motorcycles to dealers in the mid-1960s.The restoration was completed for Hondas 60th anniversary of selling vehicles in America.Powering the truck is a 283-cubic-inch V8 coupled to a three-speed manual transmission, which is more than enough to carry around a couple of lightweight motorcycles.Speaking of which, the bikes in the bed are a 1965 Super Cub with a 49-cc motor; and a 1965 CB160 with a 161-cc two-cylinder motor.The truck isnt the exact vehicle that was used by Honda in the 60s, but it has been painstakingly recreated to look just like it. Honda worked hard to make the combination as close as it could to an archival photo it had of the truck, including the hand-painted livery with Honda Americas original home office address. Honda didnt start building its own cars until the mid-sixties, and even then they werent something that could haul a bunch of bikes around. At the time, Soichiro Honda was fully engrossed in racing, and the companys focus was on cutting-edge motorcycles, which is why its first car, the Honda S600, was built of mostly motorcycle parts.The truck and motorcycle combo will be making an appearance at this years SEMA show, as well as going on a nation-wide tour, before going back home to Torrance, California, where it will be displayed in front of a replica of Hondas 1959
Origin: Honda just restored this—classic Chevrolet pickup?
All about car 