Cape Cod

Gant Rugger Fall/Winter 2010.

Unbeknownst to me (before now), Gant Rugger has teamed up with the band U.S. Royalty to promote their fall/winter clothing line.

Check out their promotional movie Cape Cod and tell me that it's not a brilliant piece of marketing. Afterall, you can't go wrong with motorcycles, music, and the great outdoors.

Retro Obsession: Ford Bronco

Through five successive generations, Ford's Bronco provided a more brutish, yet fun, alternative to it's wildly successful line of rugged pickup trucks. That's a shit-ton of American steel (and jobs).

For years now I've flirted with the idea of purchasing one of these late-model squirrel killers. A ratted out, jacked up, rusty Bronco with a faux wood dash and cheap aftermarket seat covers. You can almost smell the burning oil.

More recently, however, I've been digging the late 60s/early 70s models. They are damn near works of art when restored correctly. And now I want one.

The Ford Bronco. Perfect for camping trips, mountaineering, towing shit, hauling dead animals, or outrunning the cops. Unleash your inner redneck.




1983 Ford Bronco ad. The red interior makes it easier for mountain patrol to spot your lifeless body amidst all of that snow.

1976 Bronco.

1979 Bronco.

1982 Ford Bronco ad.

Matt Houston's die-cast metal Bronco. Rad chest hair and mustache not included.

1973 Ford Bronco.

1980 Ford Bronco ad. The family wagon that gets such terrible mileage that you'll need to trade one of your kids for gas money.

1972 Bronco.

1966 Bronco.

1978 Ford Bronco ad. Riding shotgun with the Brawny Man and his dog Skip.

1977 Bronco.

1975 Bronco.

1975 Bronco interior.

Oh yeah, you've got this.

Fixed Gears and Mag Wheels: The 1980s BMX Craze

When I was a kid I loved bikes. Really, what kid doesn't? Afterall, a boy's first wheels are his ticket to the world. I received my first Schwinn on my fifth birthday (training wheels and all) and it still stands as the greatest gift of all time. So much so that I have it to this day. It may be a little dinged up, rusty, and missing the chrome fenders, but I'm never letting it go.

Let's be honest though. I grew out of that first bike pretty quickly. As the Bicycle MotoCross (BMX) sport became increasingly popular during the early to mid 1980s, kids around the country were putting their regular bikes through hell trying to pull off that perfect wheelie, pogo, bunny hop, and curb endo. You'd find makeshift ramps popping up in every cul-de-sac with kids launching themselves all over the damn neighborhood. It became a boy's right of passage if he could pull off any number of these street skills; even more so if it were performed on a shiny new chromed-out BMX bike with fixed gears and mag wheels. I had two of them.

I couldn't tell you any of the popular riders back in the day. I didn't watch the events or read the mags. All I know is that I can think of no better way to spend a Saturday than curb hopping my way across town, racing friends, and laughing all the way.

1967 Pontiac GTO: The Great One

The first GTO appeared as an option in the Pontiac Tempest line. It was a way to get around a General Motors Corp. ban on muscle cars at the time. Pontiac borrowed the GTO designation, which stands for Gran Turismo Omologato, from Ferrari. The 1967 model is part of the second generation of GTOs. The straight geometric lines of the 1964 Tempest GTO gave way to subtle curves, such as the upswept rear fenders in the 1966 model year, and GTO became a separate Tempest model line. Unchanged for the car was the GTO power. The 1967 model had a 400-cubic-inch V8 engine that offerec three levels of horsepower ranging from 255 to 360. Equipped with the 360-horsepower engine, the GTO could travel from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 6.8 seconds and reach a top speed of 130 miles per hour. In its advertisements for the 1967 GTO, Pontiac GTO stood for The Great One.

Pontiac may be dead but the workmanship and design of the original "Goats" are timeless.

Specifications
Wheelbase, inches: 115.0
Weight, lbs: 3,425
Number built: 81,722
Base price: $2,871

Top Available Engine
Type: ohv V-8
Displacement, cid: 400
Fuel system: 1 x 4 bbl.
Compression ratio: 10.75:1
Horsepower @ rpm: 360 @ 5400
Torque @ rpm: 438 @ 3800

Representative Performance
0-60 mph, sec: 6.6
1/4 mile, sec @ mph: 14.66 @ 99

Spec. Info Via

1967 Pontiac Ad