Collection Created by Zach Klapman aka hammeraclassic
Classic Cruisers
I created this collection for two reasons. The first is that I grew up obsessed with old cars. The first cars I remembering seeing that struck a chord weren’t Ferraris or exotics; they were old cars. As a kid, I went to a hot rod show every week. I subscribed to every hot rod magazine there was. I was 12, and I’d read about 10 articles on how to box a frame and install a new front end in a 1933 Ford. I’d read about chopping tops, and circle parts, creating cars in my mind, dreaming about what I would build.
The second reason is that power and speed isn’t the end-all be-all. I love going fast, I love to clip corners and power slide and all that. But there is a different kind of euphoria that exists when you’re going 20MPH in a 1959 Pontiac or a class Cadillac. You savor the car, the experience. And pedestrians smile at these cruisers. When a super-powered muscle car goes by, it’s meant to intimidate the world. It’s the cut-off t-shirt of cars. These cars are smoking jackets.
Remembering Pontiac
When Pontiac closed down, I honestly wasn’t surprised or sad. Call me callous, but GM had too many brands, all basically building the same car. And with some exceptions, Pontiac wasn’t building anything pretty, or good.
But, the exceptions were amazing.
The first GTO is credited as being the first muscle car. I had a ’65 Le Mans, which looks just like a GTO, with some different trim. I loved that car. I still do. Then there was the Firebird: Italian curves with American reliability. The Trans Ams are classic cool. The Solstice is a collectible that only needed a decent interior to make real headlines. The last GTO had an interior that upstaged the Corvette until 2014, and was its performance out-shown its plain exterior by ten-fold. And the G8 GXP was our only real taste of a hot sedan that didn’t come from Germany.
I don’t mourn the death of Pontiac. The world only has so many people and they can only buy so many cars. Pontiac was surpassed by superior companies, plain and simple. But if I had the money, I would buy every car in this collection. Absolutely.
Customs
For those that don’t know, a “custom” is usually a long, heavy, luxury car that rides low, and has had a varying amount of body work done. The most common change is to “chop” the top; cutting a section of the roof support out so lower the canopy, making the car look smoother.
Often referred to as “lead sleds” due to the amount of heavy metal used in altering the body, these cars are about making a visual statement without looking like a Mardi Gras costume.
They aren’t fast (even if they have a big engine), but they have a boldness to them that I love. 2-doors of 4, there was a stealthy power they possessed, like a nuclear submarine, or maybe a Blue Whale.
And the shapes are art. Hot rodders spent their money and time going faster, but these guys were trying to create art. Stretching bodies, chopping tops, recessing lights and antennae, the mission was simply “be cool”.
Pro-Touring Monsters
Oh how I wish the “pro-touring” movement had been invented when I had my 1965 Pontiac. It stopped as fast as a cruise ship. In turns it leaned like Lil Wayne. Thinking back on it, as a car, it was actually pretty bad. Other than making loud noise, tricking me into thinking it was fast, and drawing looks, it’s performance as an automobile was probably worse than a modern ambulance.
Pro-touring is the invention that has fixed a lot of what makes old cars bad. Straight-line speed is not what measures a car these days; the total package does. How does it corner? How does it stop? How is the steering feel? Steering feel. In high school my steering wheel felt like it would fall off, because 1.5 of 3 spokes it already had. I am not kidding.
But now you can take pretty much any old car and with enough know-how, the right parts, and money, make it as good around a track as, say, an E39 M5. Think about it, you can turn a ’55 Buick into a BMW. Camaros are passing Ferraris on race tracks. Your classic car cake is now calorie free, and corners at .99g. Hell yeah.
Ultimate Drag Racing Quiver
Drag racing is the American automotive pastime. Stock racing happened early, but the old joke is that the first drag race happened the moment the second car rolled off the assembly line.
I believe it.
Cars are as much about self-satisfaction as they are comparison. Think of when you walk through a car show, what do you do? Judge every car you see. You’re picking apart the rim choice, the stance, the paint, the interior, the model itself; it’s all comparison.
Drag racing is how we removed subjectivity. You think my Buick is an old man’s car? Line it up at the light and we’ll see.
Today, cars put down their power with the efficiency of momentum in space. Street legal cars run 11-second quarter miles, a time that required a parachute and helmet back in the early days. But today you can buy a Porsche Panamera, put 3 friends in in, hit some buttons, and run quarter miles with the consistency of a sunrise.
But that’s not what makes racing exciting. Are movies exciting where everything goes to plan? No. Drama is exciting. Danger, some craziness, some “Uh oh!” That is what this collection comprises of: cars that are a bit scary. Old-school drag cars that weren’t sterile. It’s battle axes to today’s drone warfare. These cars give you pause, and take guts and technique to run fast. These are real drag cars, big tires, short pipes, uncertainty.
Future Auction Kings
If you missed it, a 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO recently sold for $52 million dollars. No, there’s no typo there. The value of collector cars is going places that makes a rational person’s brain explode, but like it or not it’s happening. Figuring out what the next investment is could mean a healthy retirement.
Old Ferraris and Bentleys will be auction kings for a while, but as the generations change (i.e. die), the favorites change too. Think about what car you dreamt of as a kid, what you saw in magazines and wished you could buy. That’s what this collection is about. I don’t care that much about finding the next 1945 diamond, I want the ones made recently, that drive well, go fast, and will appreciate as my generation makes money. That’s what this collection is: the dream cars of my generation.
Original Automotive Artwork
The definition of “art” is subjective, I know that. I once saw a “piece” in a museum that was a pile of Frosted Flakes boxes. I’m not kidding. That is not art to me, that is what happens in the back of a Costco.
These are art to me. You see, some cars are cool, or fast, or even good looking.
But then there are those few. The ones that stop you the second you see them. Your brain doesn’t have to think about it, it just knows: this is gorgeous. This is right. I have a theory that a truly beautiful car is so correct in every way- from size to proportion to the details to the shape- that you see it for its entirety instantly. It’s a gut reaction. A Lamborghini Gallardo is cool, and it has some interesting design parts, but an Aston Martin reduces humans to drooling, speechless idiots.
Maybe the Flakes artist wouldn’t agree that cars are art, and that’s fine. They can go get cereal, and I’ll stare in awe.
The Drifting Collection
I LOVE drifting. I love it. I’m not even that good at it. I can power-on oversteer like anyone else, and sliding close to cars or obstacles in the snow is almost second nature to me to the point I think I’m quite good, but initiating a slide before a turn and roasting tires is out of the reach of my wallet and insurance coverage for now.
But since the first time I spun a tire, it has sent electricity to my brain like almost nothing else. Even today, simply spinning a tire in a wet puddle makes me giggle like a newborn staring at a pair of shiny keys. There’s something about doing something “wrong” with a car, something that is frowned upon by adults, or that pro racers say is “slow”, that I like.
It’s purely for fun. It’s not fast around a track, but I couldn’t care less. I stare at empty parking lots like Columbus seeing new land; It’s true, ask my friends. Because I just want to play with cars. I don’t want to compete against men wired like robots who can run the same lap 3,000 times in a row. I can’t do that, and it doesn’t sound fun.
I want to smoke tires, feel almost out of control, do something different, mischievous, and show boat. That’s what these cars are for.
Track Toys!
Driving on a race track is one of the best ways to become a better driver. I don’t mean a better racer, (Who’s a racer? Not I.) I’m talking about anyone who drives a car. The people you see jamming on the brakes the second it starts raining, or the hill gets steep? They should do a track day with an instructor. Many countries in Europe having rigorous driving instruction that prepares their people for every situation imaginable. But here? Learn to park, read a stop sign, nice job, here’s your license.
That’s why you see people braking through a corner on a mountain, even though that’s less safe than braking before the corner. It’s our natural fear that tells us “slower is better”, but people don’t know that braking and turning at the same time sends all the car’s weight to a single tire, which can end in catastrophic results.
But if you do a track day, or several, you will learn these things. You will learn what a car can do, and it will be MILES beyond what you thought was possible. With that knowledge, you will be a safer and more composed driver, a more observant driver, and if you’re in an emergency situation, a better prepared driver.
These cars are meant for track driving. I picked cars that provide a variety of experiences and layouts, to make me a great driver no matter what car I’m in. FWD, RWD, AWD, doesn’t matter, I can handle it all.
Off-Road Ready
Driving on dirt is one of my favorite things to do in an automobile. There’s less grip, so I can slide. You don’t need a lot of power to have fun, there’s mud and water, you can get terrified at 2MPH, and there’s usually less rules than there are on the road.
And within the playland of nature, there’s tons of different types of driving and vehicles to choose from. It’s like music: in the mood to rage? Choose Metallica and a Baja truck with 800HP that can fly 150 feet down the road and land with hardly a shudder. Something slower? Get a rock crawler and some jazz, and sweat profusely as you inch over a rock, fearing a rollover at any second. Or you can get a rally car, and partake in the most difficult type of racing on the planet, where surfaces change around every turn, and the only safety equipment is the cage in your car and the luck of hitting a bush instead of a tree.
Off-roading is always exciting and always a challenge, no matter what speed you’re going, and that is why it is awesome.
Billionaire Muscle Cars
These are the cars I would buy if money were no object. Not “If I do well.” I’m talking Jay-Z money. 9 figures. So much I can’t spend it, and I forget where half of it is. If buying expensive cars became as thoughtless as buying gum I would buy nothing but dreams. Cars that, as I write this, are un-attainable. They have zero practical use, they’re unreliable, or un-drivable.
It doesn’t matter. These are gems. Cars that hit you in the gut, or in the part of the brain that makes kids chase ice cream trucks. Pure pleasure, no matter how much it costs.
Rat rods
I love rat rods because there is zero formula to make one. There’s trends, but there’s no rules. There’s no true commonality. Yeah, lots of people have shifters out the roof, or choose beat Vickys as their canvas, but you can do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t look too clean. Pontiac engine in a Chrysler? Sure! Who cares!? These heads with that diff. , a transmission from here and pulleys fro there, it doesn’t matter! Does it work? Is it tough looking? Does it look like you could catch tetanus? Then you did it perfectly.
I am great at procrastination, and I have a decent case of ADD. That means that I will never smooth a fender until it is as smooth as glass. I’ll never form a car worthy of Pebble Beach, and no one will approve of my paint.
But I can get on board with a welder and a grinding wheel. Rat rods have an improvisational character to them that I love. It’s a “What’s around the shop?” kind of thing. You’re working with what you got, and making it as cool as possible. More of the result depends on your skills with metal than your wallet and paint scheme, and there’s a blue collar-ness to that that is captivating. I won’t build a Riddler winner, but I’ll build a dangerous-to-drive rat rod.