1969 Camaro Z-28 Restored Yellow With Enduro Bumper on 2040-cars

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Driving Granatelli's turbine-powered 1978 Chevy Corvette [w/video]

With its curvy snout and feminine haunches, the third-gen Chevrolet Corvette looks like a dreamy – if dated – exemplar of Sports Car Fantasy 101 when viewed through modern eyes. This particular specimen circa '78, clad in silver and black paint with red pinstripes, appears to be a well-preserved example from the era. Apart from its low-profile Pirellis, slightly raised and slotted hood, spacious stance and a certain hand-painted descriptor alongside its crossed flag logos, you'd never guess there's a Space-Age propulsion unit powering this Coke bottle-bodied ride. Climb inside, and you're presented with aircraft gauges and big, colorful square buttons in the center panel. It takes a push of the "Ignitor" button, a tap of the starter button, and a slide of a T-handle for this nearly 40-year-old sports car to start sounding like Gulfstream G650 ready for takeoff. Yep, you're sitting in an 880-horsepower, turbine-powered Corvette, the only one of its kind in the world. Welcome to the whoosh. What The...? Built by Vince Granatelli, son of Indy 500 guru Andy Granatelli, this curious Corvette came into being by cramming a Pratt & Whitney ST6N-74 gas turbine engine into the donor car's lengthy front end. The same type of Jet A-burning mill powered Granatelli Senior's STP-sponsored racecar at the 1967 Indianapolis 500, where it famously led most of the 198 of 200 laps until a $6 transmission bearing failed, knocking it out of the race. The idea of turbine power usurping internal combustion was so threatening that Indy's governing body restricted turbine performance into obsolescence thereafter. A turbine-powered Corvette sounds excessive because it is. But there are also things about this 880-horsepower, 1,161-pound-feet monster that might surprise you. While it smacks of futurist exoticism and cost a then-dizzying $37,000 in 1967, the Canadian-built powerplant uses 80 percent fewer parts than an internal combustion V8 and will run on virtually anything combustible – whiskey, diesel, even Chanel No. 5. Though it's triple the length of a V8, the Pratt & Whitney beast weighs only 285 pounds. It's also one hell of a robust workhorse, typically serving as an auxiliary power unit for commercial aircraft or a generator in oil fields, where it can run for tens of thousands of consecutive hours before needing an overhaul. To adapt the Chevrolet for jet duty, the nose section was gutted and a sub-frame was built to compensate for the loosey-goosey front end.

2018 Woodward Dream Cruise: What to know and where to go

If there's anything that proves Detroit's motor-oil-in-the-veins, gearhead bonafides, it's the annual Woodward Dream Cruise, which will bring an anticipated 1.5 million or so people from near and far, plus tens of thousands of classic and custom and just plain weird cars, to a 16-mile portion of Woodward Avenue on Saturday for the 24th year. Loved by gearheads, collectors and the merely curious, who see it as the Motor City's version of Mardi Gras, and loathed by others, who deride it as the world's largest traffic jam, the Dream Cruise is nothing if not an explosion for the senses. What will you see there? Well, as Autoblog Managing Editor Greg Rasa put it last year, "There are historic cars. And works of art. Some are worth vast sums of money, and some are rat rods and rust buckets. And some are bizarre creations that make you ask, 'What were they thinking?'" A few things are certain: You will see many incredible automobiles. There will be plenty of T-shirts and other merch, official and not-so-much. It will be crowded, and probably hot. The Cruise will officially go from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., though of course cruisers have been out already for weeks. And there are plenty of attractions, both on and off the pavement of Woodward. Tony Michaels, the Dream Cruise's executive director, said the event is special for the Detroit region. "Together we celebrate the automobile and what it has meant to us," he told Autoblog. "To see the these fantastic vehicles and the proud owners says so much about who we are and our pride. "People should take it in to see history running 16 miles down Woodward Avenue and to be a part of the greatest automobile event in America." Ford is once again serving as the Dream Cruise presenting sponsor and will hold the 20th anniversary of the Mustang Alley at the corner of Nine Mile and Woodward in Ferndale, where it expects as many as 1,000 Mustangs to line up. It will also show off its lineage of trucks at 13 Mile, along with several performance vehicles at Duggan's Irish Pub at 31501 Woodward in Royal Oak. The company on Thursday unveiled the 2018 Mustang Cobra Jet drag car to celebrate the nameplate's 50th anniversary. Just 68 examples are planned of the $130,000 limited-edition model Other Ford activities include: Sales of tickets for a raffle of a one-off Kona Blue Mustang Bullitt, starting at the media clubhouse at 2 p.m. Friday. The raffle itself takes place in November and will support juvenile diabetes research.

GM may have teased a whole group of electric vehicles

During GM's big CES press conference, the automaker highlighted a number of its upcoming electric car-related projects from delivery vans to the upcoming flagship Cadillac Celestiq. In the middle of it all, a collection of mystery cars sat in the background behind speakers. They were in the dark, lit only with their running lights, and while it's possible they're just generic filler cars or concepts, we think they could be future products. Our best shot of the cars together is shown above, and we can pretty easily identify three of the vehicles. In the center is obviously the GMC Hummer EV. On either side of it are Cadillacs. To the left seems to be the Lyriq crossover, and to the right is the Celestiq sedan. Two of these cars have production dates, and the third has been confirmed for eventual production, just without timing. This is why we think the rest of the cars are upcoming models. The next most easily identified car is on the near right behind the Cadillac Celestiq. It very clearly has a Chevy bowtie illuminated in the running lights. And looking closely, it appears to be a pickup truck. It's difficult to make out anything more than that. The nose does look a bit more rounded and swept back than the brick-like designs of the Silverado truck line. That also squares with what seemed to be the upcoming truck that appeared in the background of yet another GM presentation. GM previously said this electric Chevy truck will be a full-size model with up to 400 miles of range. That leaves us with three more mysterious models. Over to the left behind the Cadillac Lyriq are what appear to be a pair of crossovers. The one on the far left looks low, curvy, and possibly with a fastback roof. The one on the right is taller, boxier, and probably more of a full-size people hauler. It's hard to say much more beyond that. They could be new electric Buicks, which would fit in nicely with that brand's crossover portfolio, and would likely be highly successful in China, where Buicks, crossovers and electric cars are all rather hot commodities. As for the mystery car on the far right, it's quite a puzzle. We can at least rule out Buick and Cadillac, and GMC since it's definitely a car, and a rather small one compared with the other cars on display. That leaves Chevy, and possibly the autonomous division Cruise. We're leaning toward it being a Chevy, since the first Cruise vehicle is going to be a boxy pod of sorts.