Million Dollar Muscle Cars: The Rarest and Most Collectible Cars of the Performance Era - Tapa dura

Almost everyone collects something, from stamps to parking tickets. Petrolheads this side of the 'puddle' collect classic, unusual, sporty cars. In the US, it's serous muscle cars - quick and very powerful original vehicles made in the Sixties and Seventies for the offspring of Baby Boomers - that are sought. Most were thrashed and trashed; however a few remain and sell for up to $1 million depending on rarity and performance. This book, Million Dollar Muscle cars- The Rarest and Most Collectible cars of The Performance Era, reveals what to buy and why, from Scuda and Charger, to GTO and Chevelle. Enlightening, but really only for the American dreamer. --London Evening Standard...Book of The Month On one level, you might find this book highly frustrating. Just like it's really annoying to know your parents or grandparents could have bought a flat in prime London space for a couple of quid back in the day, then so it is with the vintage American muscle car. They were built as chaep, stripped-out road cars, bought by hoodlums wanting to go racing for a couple of bucks, but now fetch ' double-comma' price tags, as author Colin Comer nicely puts it. Hence the title....But Comer's words are the highlight. You need a basic understanding on US muscle technical expressions, but he really knows these cars - where they've been, what they mean when they were launched. There could be more flair here, but for a meat-and-potatoes experience of these amazingly cool, retro-heavy cars, this book does it very nicely --Top Gear...If there's one thing that Motorbooks do well, it's creating large-scale coffee table books full of stunning photography of some of the finest American cars of all time. And this latest effort, written by muscle car dealer Colin Cormer with photography by the renowned David Newhardt, is no exception. As the title suggests Million Dollar Muscle Cars is devoted to thse fast, powerful American models of the Sixties and Seventies that established themselves kings of the high-performance scene. And although by motorbooks standards it's positivly skinny at 'just' 192 pages, it's still a hefty volume compared with what some other publishers get away with offering for similar money. What sets this book apart from others covering muscle cars is its approach to their values nowadays. As Cormer says, 'Muscle cars were never intended to be valuable; in fact the whole idea behind muscle cars was to make them inexpensive and fast'. These days, however, with most having long since been thrashed and trashed, the best surviving examples of some of the most desirable models are now worth serious money. And that means well into six figures in some cases, and up to a milion in others. And that's what dictates the format of this book, with the first section ( containing eight chapters) dedicated to those cars capable of acheiving a million dollars these days, while the second section (featuring no less than fifteen chapters, each one covering a different make and model) is headed simply 'Six Figures and Rising'. Fascinatingly, not only does Comer offer a usefull amount of detail on each model's history, he also describes the actual examples in the photographs before going on to explain about their values - and why each one is worth what it is. So unlike most muscle car books, this one manages to incorporate a modern-day relevance to the whole scene rather than focusing purely on its history. If coverage of such models as the 1965 Shelby GT350 R or '69 Dodge Charger Daytona Hemi appeals to you, we'd thoroughly recommend investing £25 here. You won't be disappointed. --Classic Car Mart

'Double Comma' is a phrase used nowadyas in the States to describe a car whose value is over a million dollars (because to write 1,000,000 you need to use two commas!) and this book is full of them. They were the first baby boomers cars and they were built to race - and race many of them they did. nowadays of course the baby boomers are nearing retirment and those who have made their fortunes now do battle on the auction-room floor to won the rarest and most desirable of all the cars they loved in their youth. Understandably, not all the cars in the book are worth a million dollars...in fcat many of them aren't! But make no mistake, the cars gathered together in this book are right at the shapr end value-wise, monkers like ZL-1, GT 500, Hemi Cude, and Ram Air IV GTO all feature and represent cars that were made in very low numbers...which explains their values today, sadlt, few of us can afford such amazing machinery, but it's sure nice to dream once in a while! --Classic American, December, 2009

I am happy to say this book is far more than a pretty picture book. Honestly, I was shocked Comer gives so much history on each individual car including who owned it, what they paid, when they sold it and even how much they sold for. The legwork in getting this info had to be a real labor of love, and something I've never seen anybody do before. And this isn't some fairy tale book that wants us to believe all muscle cars are great just because they are expensive. Much like another book I love, Joe Oldham's Musclecar Confidential, Comer tells it like it is. I was hooked when I read the fourth sentence in the book - "These rattle trap, bare bones, crude devices were built to conform to a price point with little regard given to sophistication or longevity, and aimed squarely at the youth market." I had never thought about it before, but that really summed up the whole muscle car era. It was about money for the manufacturers then and it seems to be about the money now.All I can say is if you are a muscle car junkie like me I'm sure you'll have a hard time putting this book down. I had heard rumors of these crazy sales for big bucks, and I knew about a few of the cars. But outside of watching 60 seconds of coverage on a few cars on TV from Barrett-Jackson, I never knew the rest of the story. I learned a lot about the secret world of upper end car deals, and it was cool to follow these cars through and read how they sold for almost nothing only to later sell for a ton. Really cool stuff. I highly recommend this book to anybody that loves cars, or even just has a passing interest in them. The stories are so interesting that you'll find yourself not even paying attention to the car itself but more the owners and how these cars made it through...V8 new Zealand...For anyone who has felt the increase in one's pulse rate at the sound of a muscle car coming near, or felt the unique sensation in the presence of the inchoate power of a muscle car from the 60s as one embraces its steering wheel, this epistle communicates a true sense of knowledge of those feelings. Colin Comer can write well, as is obvious, but more importantly he feels the psychic sense of his subject and can elicit from his readers an acknowledgement of that which is not usually susceptible to words. Many will not understand the intimacy of which i speak but for those of us who grew up in the locus of the subject of Colin's book they will know - Colin has captured the essence; Colin has captured the elegance of the era....At last a muscle car book written by a true car guy, actual collector and muscle car lover instead of a hired gun who writes about whatever car the publisher tells him or her to write about. This author lives and breathes muscle cars and it shows in the writing. Funny insighful and packed with real world experiences and stories from a guy on the front lines on the muscle car era/ Plus as a bonus the author has his finger on the pulse of the market and gives real world honest insight on up and coming cars as wellas the truly significant ones. Must read for anyone who loves muscle cars....I enjoyed this book as it presents some timely perspectives about some of the rarer collector muscle cars. Excellent color pictures provide appropriate details about each of the subject cars. There are also a myriad of the car's details and what makes it worthy of the escalated prices they command. Also, there are some historical dates of how the cars have sold, and resold, along with the prices. A good read which provides a more current view of the highest dollar musclecars...It's easy to recommend this publication. Great background stories and superb photographs combine to make this a 'must have'. If you have any interest at all in American Muscle Cars, you won't be disappointed!! --Hemmings Auto news, November 2009

About the book:
In the 1960s and 1970s American automakers produced millions of muscle cars: high-performance cars more adept at competition than transportation. The baby boom generation snapped up these cars and proceeded to use them as intended, drag and street racing the cars until there was nothing left of them.

No longer minimum-wage high schoolers, today’s boomers enjoy more disposable income than any generation in history. And many of them are spending that income on highly collectible muscle cars.
Because so few muscle cars survived the abuse of young drivers back in the day, muscle car prices have skyrocketed, with mundane muscle cars commanding six-figure prices and the most significant muscle cars surpassing the million-dollar mark.
 
Respected muscle car expert Colin Comer and top photographer David Newhardt tell the story of each of these rarest of rare cars in Million-Dollar Muscle Cars, the only book dedicated to these top-flight cars.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Big-Money Muscle
Section 1: Million-Dollar Cars
  Chapter One: 1970-1971 ‘Cuda & Challenger Hemi Convertibles
  Chapter Two: 1965 Shelby GT350 R Models
  Chapter Three: 1965 Hurst GeeTO Tiger
  Chapter Four: 1967 Shelby GT500 Super Snake
  Chapter Five: 1968 Camaro Z/28 Convertible
  Chapter Six: 1969 Trans Am Convertibles
  Chapter Seven: 1969 ZL1 Camaros
  Chapter Eight: 1971 Sox & Martin Stock Hemi ‘Cuda Car
Section 2: Six Figures and Rising
  Chapter Nine: 1965 Hurst Motor Trend GTO Riverside 500 Pace Car
  Chapter Ten: 1965-1966 Shelby GT350 Factory Drag Cars
  Chapter Eleven: 1968 Mr. Norm’s GSS 440 Dart
  Chapter Twelve: 1969 Yenko 427 Nova
  Chapter Thirteen: 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona Hemi
  Chapter Fourteen: 1969-1971 Pontiac GTO Judge Round-Port Convertibles
  Chapter Fifteen: 1970 Chevelle L56 Convertible
Appendices
  Appendix A: Alternatives to Million-Dollar Muscle
  Appendix B: A Real-World Buyer’s Guide

 

See Motorbooks author Colin Comer interviewed by Jay Leno on JayLenosGarage.com: http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/video/jays-book-club-lee-klancher/1211582/