1957 Chrysler New Yorker Hemi 392 Base 6.4l on 2040-cars

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Chevy Bolt wins 2017 Green Car of the Year

We knew that a plug-in vehicle was going to win the 2017 Green Car of the Year award this year, given that all five finalists have a way to charge up. And when Ron Cogan, the editor and publisher of Green Car Journal, announced the winner – the 2017 Chevy Bolt EV – he said that the car itself represents one of those times in the auto industry when everything is about to change. Similar to the invention of the starter motor, things are about to get different. For now, though, the fact that the Bolt EV won an award sounds like the same old thing all over again. Just this week, it was named Motor Trends Car of the Year and to the Car And Driver Top 10 list. The other four finalists for Green Car of the Year included the Toyota Prius Prime, the Chrysler Pacifica, the Kia Optima (including hybrid and plug-in hybrid models) and the BMW 330e iPerformance. Last year, the winner was the 2016 Chevy Volt. Did Green Car Journal make the right selection this year? See the award ceremony below.

Mopar Hellephant crate engine sells out in 48 hours

This happened so quickly that we're only just catching up with it. Mopar opened pre-orders on the 7.0-liter Hellephant Hemi crate engine on April 26, which is Hemi Day. According to Allpar, hubbub on social media not long after that day claimed Mopar had gone through all of its Hellephant stock. When Allpar asked Fiat Chrysler for clarification, a spokesperson e-mailed, "Given the high demand and the hand-built, time-intensive build process, we have closed preordering for the 426 Hellephant Supercharged HEMI crate engine. Based on preorders, the engine sold out in just two days. Customers can visit www.cratehemi.com to receive future information and updates on the 'Hellephant' engine." No one is certain how many engines Mopar sold. Allpar wrote, "Industry insiders believe Mopar may be making around 100," but reiterated that it's a guess. The engine and the ordering process have their peculiarities. Mopar Insiders explained that Tool Engineering International helped create the 426-cubic-inch block, and that the Hellephant engine "shares nothing except for displacement with the rumored upcoming 7.0-liter 426 Hemi V8." On the Hellcat.org forum, a poster wrote that the engines "can only be sold through a dealer and that the dealers can only order 1 engine per week." The Hellephant doesn't come with Mopar's three-year, 100,000-mile warranty, either. During a press briefing last October, FCA officials said they weren't sure about offering any warranty. Based on the motor being given a part number starting with the letter P, there is a bit of protection, but it's a 90-day limited warranty covering "defects in materials or wokmanship," and only applies to engines not used in competition. For those who didn't get the opportunity to drop $29,995 for 1,000 horsepower and 950 pound-feet of torque, the best bet is to hope for the return of Apollyon's pachyderm. Motor1 wrote that "Rumors hint at... another limited run scheduled for next year due to overwhelming demand." That's thin thread to hang a Hellephant from, but it beats bupkis.

Junkyard Gem: 1975 Plymouth Fury Sedan

The Plymouth Fury was once among the most commonplace vehicles on American roads, with the 1970s being the most Furious decade of all. If you've watched a lot of Malaise Era cop shows, you've seen endless examples of the 1975-1978 B-Body Fury sedan; today's Junkyard Gem in Colorado is a civilian version with a very unusual combination of features and options. Though the 1975-1978 Fury is sibling to many much more famous B Platform Chryslers, including the Dukes of Hazzard General Lee and a lot of other highly revered Mopars of the late 1960s and early 1970s, it doesn't get the recognition it deserves today. Would the world be the same if Debbie Harry had posed in her Anya Phillips dress on the bumper of, say, a Ford LTD instead of the iconic '76 Fury on the cover of Plastic Letters? I've got this album cover hanging on my garage wall, right next to Sir Mix-a-Lot's My Hooptie and its '69 Buick Electra. This sun-baked '75 left the assembly line with some nice luxury options for an affordable midsize sedan of its time, including a padded vinyl roof. Factory air conditioning was a $437 option on the Fury in 1975, a price tag that comes to an attention-grabbing $2,185 in 2020 dollars. The MSRP on a Fury sedan that year started at just $3,571 ($17,840 today), so A/C jacked up the cost by close to 15%. The base engine was a 225-cubic-inch (3.7-liter) Slant-6, but this car took the next step up on the Fury engine hierarchy for 1975: a 318-cubic-inch (5.2-liter) V8 making 145 horsepower. Here's where things get a bit weird. That shift lever on the steering column controls a three-speed manual; this rig is commonly known as a three-on-the-tree. The most popular transmission setup on Detroit cars of the 1940s through the early 1960s, the good ol' three-on-the-tree survived here all the way through the 1979 model year in new cars and 1987 in new trucks. By 1975, most lower-priced American mid- and full-sized cars had the three-on-the-tree as base equipment, but by that time nearly every new-car shopper here opted for an automatic transmission or — occasionally — a floor-shifted three- or four-speed manual. The total number of 1975 Fury buyers who sprang for the V8 engine, air conditioning, and a vinyl roof yet still kept the old-fashioned three-on-the-tree transmission setup probably can be counted in the low hundreds, if even that many.