The MuscleCar Place

Jonathan Kilner from Hagerty Insurance gives us the complete low down on everything you ever wanted to know about car insurance, and TCI has another $50 Gift Certificate for you. Just listen and win!

Rob & Jake discuss the benefits of understanding your personality type before pursuing a career or business change. Rob & Jake discuss the ins and outs of a DISC Personality Profile. View this episode at themusclecarplace.com to get a link for your own personality test.

Trevor Bayne wins the Daytona 500 at the age of 20! $50 TCI Gift Certificate Contest. Rob wants to be a professional race car driver, starting by going "Pro Touring" with his '64 Chevelle Derek Putnam from National Parts Depot and Fastest Street Car Magazine discusses all things drag racing.

Rob discusses the continued feedback from people about why he started The MuscleCar Place. Details on how you can enter to win a $50 Gift Certificate from TCI Automotive. An interview with Marc Meadors fro Good Guys!

And now….for something completely different. Jake & Rob. Definitely not our best picture. I’ve been contacted my many of you out there that have always wanted to chase a dream with a career change, or simply change the way your current business works to make it more align with your calling, passions, talents, and the like. I’ve been able to do that with The MuscleCar Place (see my blog post titled How to Make a Living at Loving Muscle Cars). Since it seems to be such a common desire though my buddy Jake Hanson and I decided to put together a few podcast episodes to help others chase the dream as well. Jake has been very successful working with his parents in a family business, and he brings a lot to the table. This show is all about doing the thing most people struggle with first, just identifying a passion in the first place. Hopefully we’ll help you walk through that process! We promise that these shows will be updated regularly on an infrequent basis. Feel free to e-mail in any questions/comments to bizpodcast@themusclecarplace.com. -Rob & Jake Find us in iTunes! =============== TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Jeff Allison tells us that The MuscleCar Place podcast helped him pull the trigger and open his own shop!

This week's show features Larry Brogin from Dynacorn Classic Bodies. Rob confesses the true beginnings of The MuscleCar Place.

Listen and Win! Our friends at COMP Cams are giving away a $50 Gift Certificate this week, and entry is free an easy!  To enter simply leave a comment below that you have completed one of the following actions.  To make it easy, all the necessary links are here and ready to go. Enter in as many ways as possible to improve your chances of winning! Sign up for this podcast in iTunes (must have iTunes installed first) Sign up for our free weekly newsletter Become a fan of our FACEBOOK page Follow us on TWITTER Post our podcast show on YOUR Facebook page announcing the contest. Give a link to your Facebook page is required as proof. Become a fan of COMP Cams on FACEBOOK Follow COMP Cams on TWITTER Answer the SECRET QUESTION from the podcast show. E-mail your answer to bonus@themusclecarplace.com! The winner will be selected on Monday January 31st, 2011 at 12PM CST. Feature Segment Jason and Melanie Rushforth Jason and Melanie Rushforth are the husband and wife dynamic duo behind Rushforth Wheels as well as Jason Rushforth designs. A long time car nut, Jason found it hard to work at a “real” job and decided to make a career out of designing cars for others. He has designed many of the cars on popular newsstand magazines that you know well, has had his creations win awards at SEMA, and is one of the out-of-the-box “hot” designers in play today. His line of Rushforth Wheels is now starting to appear everywhere, especially in the world of Pro Touring. Simply put, Jason’s stuff is cool! His wife Melanie keeps the entire business growing and running smoothly while handling all of the all of the marketing, social networking, bookkeeping, etc. She’s also at every GoodGuys show they go to all over the Country. Even more impressive, when Melanie moved to Washington (where Jason lives) after her Army career she was working as a Development Director for a non-profit children’s dental clinic and getting her PhD as well. Tack that on to helping Jason grow the business and she most definitly had her hands full! The Rushforth's LS2 powered '64 Buick. Check the wheels! Jason and Melanie enjoy being in business and love cars, but perhaps their favorite is their own 1964 Buick Skylark. They bought it in all original trim locally and started making modification slowly. It’s now powered by an LS2, has a 6-speed, a full setup from Hotchkis Suspension, Baer Brakes, and of course a set of Rushforth Wheels. To date Jason is the only one to autocross it, but starting this year Melanie will be behind the wheel as well. You can contact Jason and Melanie day or night via www.RushforthWheels.com.  Thanks for the interview!  Now I just need to talk my wife into an LS swap for my Chevelle….. ======================= Robert Kibbe | TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Listen and Win! Our friends at COMP Cams are giving away a $50 Gift Certificate this week, and entry is free an easy!  To enter simply leave a comment below that you have completed one of the following actions.  To make it easy, all the necessary links are here and ready to go. Enter in as many ways as possible to improve your chances of winning! Sign up for this podcast in iTunes (must have iTunes installed first) Sign up for our free weekly newsletter Become a fan of our FACEBOOK page Follow us on TWITTER Post our podcast show on YOUR Facebook page announcing the contest. Give a link to your Facebook page is required as proof. Become a fan of COMP Cams on FACEBOOK Follow COMP Cams on TWITTER The winner will be selected on Monday January 24, 2011 at 12PM CST. Feature Segment Rick Schmidt of National Parts Depot. Image: Ocala.com Rick Schmidt has a job that many of us would trade our dog for. He’s the President of National Parts Depot, which is a massive restoration parts company based in Ocala, Florida. By day he manages the operations of the company that provides parts for many of the muscle cars we love including Camaro, Mustang, Chevelle, El Camino, Firebird, Trans Am, and Thunderbird. By night he is responsible for exercising each and every car in the company’s massive eclectic car collection that features a lot of the rarest Fords, Oldsmobiles, Chevy’s and the like. All of the cars run and drive, and Rick knows that the only way to keep the cars happy is to keep them on the road. I like him already. National Parts Depot was founded by his father Jim Schmidt, but it wasn’t always called National Parts Depot, and it wasn’t always the huge source of muscle car parts that it is today. Jim Schmidt originally started a company to provide all of the little nuts and bolts required to do a correct restoration on a Model A. Why? Because that’s what he was restoring….while in HIGH SCHOOL!  The business took off, but always remained on the side. In the ’70′s things transitioned so he sold the Model A parts company and founded National Parts Depot, and it was a mail order catalog business for 1955-1957 T-Birds. As time passed by a Mustang lineup of parts was added in and then in 1985 the first GM parts line was added for The Camaro. As the business grew in revenue it grew physically as well and they now have 4 warehouses all across the country to ensure that when parts are ordered that they arrive fast. In 1987 Rick took a hiatus from college to come help with some issues National Parts Depot was having, and the next thing he know he had come to the conclusion that learning things in business school versus doing them were two different things. He’s been at National Parts Depot ever since. NPD will have a product lineup coming soon for the Pontiac Tempest, Le Mans, and GTO.  They’ll also be launching their new company website at the end of January, and have become the co-sponsor of this podcast show as of January 1, 2011. They’ve been doing things right for a long time, and I’m looking forward to see what they do next. The only thing else that I want to know is, which car is Rick going to drive home tonight? ======================= Robert Kibbe | TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Show Sponsor! National Parts Depot is now a sponsor of The MuscleCar Place podcast! Feature Segment Bill Howell and the GTO that made him famous. Image: Popular Hot Rodding Bill Howell is the unofficial Godfather of the Pro-Touring movement. He came on the scene in 2005 after being dissatifified that he really couldn’t drive his nut-and-bolt restored ’69 Camaro.  A friend recommended that he check out Pro-Touring.com to get an idea of what people that like to drive muscle cars do, and it was all over from there. He jumped in head first building  a full out ’65 GTO convertible, and the car gained him notoriety almost instantly on Pro-Touring.com as well as in several popular magazines. At the time no one had really ever put a supercharged LS powerplant under the hood of an old car, and it may have set the trend for the now common all-out Pro-Touring cars that we see at events all across the country. Bill now races a ’72 Charger SE because, well, Bill likes being the oddball and he takes nothing but pure joy in watching the confused look on others faces as he wheels around a huge and heavy Charger that can keep up with little nimble sports cars. Not content with merely participating in events with a cool car, Bill began organizing events all across the country to help grow the hobby where fanatics could autocross, cruise, road race, and the like. As participation grew, so did the number of events, and now it’s almost an informal race series all on it’s own! The events occur all across the country throughout the year, and while some are sponsored by Bill and his close friends, others are put together by FM3 Marketing including the year-end culmination event, the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational. Better yet, a strong team of sponsors now pays prize money out to competitors that race with their products throughout the year, and prizes are kept track of and tallied up at the end. Each sponsor only pays out to people that race – and place – using their products, so while you are competing with all other cars to win the event, you’re only competing against people using the same products as you have for the prize money. Last year over $22,000 was awarded by sponsors that included BF Goodrich, Detroit Speed and Engineering, Baer Brakes, Ride Tech, and Vintage Air. For 2011 Wilwood Brakes and Schwartz Performance have joined as well! That’s right, you can get paid to race. Who ever said you can’t make money as a race car driver? Take a peek through the events and choose one (or two) near you to check out. To get practiced up, hit a Good Guys show anywhere throughout the country and spend a few days at the Ride Tech autocross! Thanks for the interview, Bill. It’s guys like you that help a hobby become a sport. I’ve been to a few events this year, and the people that participate are all nearly best friends and bend over backwards to help each other. It’s nice to know that you really can be a race car driver, even if it is only on the weekends. Bill’s List of 2011 Pro Touring Events: February – Run to the Coast (California) April – Run to the Shore (New Jersey) May – Run to Music City (Nashville, TN) September – Run Through the Hills (Pigeon Forge, TN) A full listing of ALL of the 2011 Pro-Touring events is available directly at Pro-Touring.com. Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! ======================= Robert Kibbe | TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! Feature Segment This week’s guest is a man that needs no introduction. Many know his as Father Christmas, Old Saint Nick, Pere Noel, of something like that, but we’ll call him the name we know best, Santa Claus.  Santa was on the show last year, and he just couldn’t get enough. See if you can figure out which muscle car Santa likes best…because he may have let it slip! In the interview we get a recap of the year so far for him and learn that there is STILL time to get on the nice list this year. Make sure the kids hear this one….and follow Santa on Christmas Eve with the NORAD Santa Tracker. Enjoy! The Real Reason for the Season If the hustle and bustle of Christmas has you missing the point of it all, not to worry. Linus Van Pelt helped Charlie Brown with the same question a long time ago, so I’ll take his lead here and read Luke 2: 8-14. Thank YOU! This is the last podcast from The MuscleCar Place for 2010. Thank YOU for listening all year long, and helping me chase the dream of loving old cars for a living.  See you in 2011! Merry Christmas from The MuscleCar Place - and have a Happy New Year! ============================ -Robert Kibbe Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes!

Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! Listener Emails A great story about the restoration of a ’67 Ford Tennessee Highway Partol Car….with a 428, no air conditioning, and manual steering! Feature Segment Dave Smith of Factory Five and his Type 65 Coupe. Image: Factory Five Today’s podcast show features Dave Smith from Factory Five Racing. Click the Play button at the top to listen! Dave Smith is the President of Factory Five Racing and is perhaps the pinnacle example of an American success story. 15 years ago he and his brother threw up their hands at the corporate life and decided to start their own company. They designed their first Cobra replica car (which they call the Mk 4 Roadster), sold a few, and then things snowballed. Since they were using a hi-tech engineering approach with the design of their cars first, the quality of their vehicle kits rang through strong with customers. With more company success meant the introduction of more new models, and a Daytona Coupe replica, which they call their Type 65 Coupe, and a competition version of their Cobra replica came next, which they call their Challenge car. After that, it was time to take a big leap and build something completely new; a new car of their complete own design! The Factory Five Hot Rod. The next product out of Factory Five was the GTM SuperCar. Unlike their previous cars, this was no replica. It was a 100% designed in-house mid engine supercar, but just like their other cars this one was a kit as well! This was also one of the first of their cars that would be tested out first with a GM engine, as the previous models used Ford powerplants. Following the GTM, the next offering out of Factory Five was the ever popular ’33 Hot Rod. It’s got a full out race chassis, in board shocks, and looks like the combination of a NASCAR Modified car and an old hot rod. Just like every other offering from Factory Five it’s a high quality kit that you can order up direct and have shipped to your driveway in a box with all of the necessary parts. Dave did give a preview of the next offerings that might be coming in the Factory Five lineup, but you’ll just have to listen to the interview to get those little nuggets! Dave stresses that Factory Five wants to stick to what they do well; build excellent kit and replica cars, and have a lot of fun doing it. That recipe has led them to have a loyal tight knit customer base, a lot of which who now keep in touch with each other because of their experience in owning and building Factory Five cars. They’re not interested in building cars for customers explicitly, but they do offer a Build School that owners and potential owners can take to learn how to build a car from the ground up. If you’ve ever wondered if you have what if takes to do the build this is your opportunity to find out up front! Thanks very much for the interview, Dave. I look forward to the next one! Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! ======================= Robert Kibbe | TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! News Pro Touring events kick off for 2011! Feature Segment Jim Bowman's 1968 Camaro racing in the early 1970's at Laguna Seca. Jim Bowman is this week’s podcast guest, and his story about his “comeback” Camaro is an incredible one. In 1969 Jim was a college student in California and he and his classmates decided to build a race car to compete in Trans Am racing. They knew nothing about Trans Am racing, had no experience in road course racing, and had no race car, but why let those little obstacles hold you up, right? Since the first obvious step was to find a race car they started to scour the papers for good candidate. They located a 1-year old Camaro for $350 that seemed too good to be true, and it was. The Camaro they found was a ’68 Z/28 that had been stolen previously, and the only thing that was returned to the owner was the shell itself. The owner wanted it out of his driveway, pronto, and a deal was struck. With no front clip, so subframe, and no drivetrain they purchased the car and then bought another $350 worth of parts from the junk yard to make one total Camaro, sans the drivetrain. A 302 was purchased via a newspaper ad, and one of Jim’s fellow students ponied up the 4-speed Muncie in his personal car. Jim was student teaching at the time as well, and his high school students helped get everything on the car buttoned up. Wa-la, a race car was born! Jim's High School shop students with the Camaro. The next task on the list was to go to driving school and get an SCCA license. They all loaded up the Camaro and headed to the track….only to find out that the Camaro they built was a rolling deathtrap. It couldn’t turn, stop, or really do anything right. To top that off, it was a rainy weekend and since no one had the foresight (or cash) to bring a set of rain tires they ended up stealing the tires off of the pickup that they used to pull the Camaro to the track. The school instructors took pity on Jim and his classmates because while they knew the Camaro was a wreck waiting to happen, they couldn’t get over their never-say-die attitude. They brought in a professional racer to give them some pointers and to help them get the Camaro sorted out. Jim stated that he drove it around the track, which had 11 turns, and he spun it 12 times. Things did work out though and the Camaro did ran a few races with a professional driver, and then later with Jim. He campaigned the car for a few years and his high school students kept involved in a big way. By the mid 1970′s though the decision to sell the car was made, and Jim would not see the car again for over 30 years. Since Jim hangs out with racers quite a bit, they were constantly asking him about the whereabouts of the car. He finally had one of them do a  little snooping, and it turned out that the person who bought the car from Jim still had it! Jim drove down to see it, but he and his wife (mostly his wife) made it clear that the car would not be purchased. After Jim saw the car he just couldn’t believe it, and even though he and his wife had agreed not to purchase it he couldn’t help but ask if it was for sale. Turns out it was, for the EXACT same price that he had sold it for! His wife couldn’t believe it either and wrote the check herself. The Camaro lives! Today the car is in the restoration planning stages, and Jim’s old high school students have come out of the woodwork to help! It will be restored back to it’s state when Jim raced it, and will even feature the same 302 and 4-speed that Jim had raced in it. He had pulled the engine and transmission before he sold it, and still had it! His high school students, who are all now grown, have already purchased the front chin spoiler. Just like it did back in the day it will have the words “Powered By: Monterey High School” prominently displayed. Jim is now sem[...]

Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! News Another muscle car is a Hollywood hero. “The Rock” is driving a ’71 Chevelle in the movie Faster. My first feature article is out on ChevyHardcore.com!  It’s on the history of GM’s participation in factory backed racing. Review of the new Top Gear TV Show on The History Channel Feature Segment Scooter Brothers Scooter Brothers is a man who has been in love with cars all of his life. He started out as a lot of us do; working under his dad’s direction. Today he is the Co-Owner of the COMP Performance Group the Chair Elect of the SEMA Board of Directors! When he was just 15 years old Scooter’s dad “kicked him out of the nest” and sent him to work at the Rambler dealership. He worked there for a few years before moving to a Chevy dealership, but in 1969 he left the dealership to join the Navy. Scooter knew that by joining the Navy directly vs. being drafted he would be able to direct what type of duty he would be given and he wanted to continue working on engines. He ended up working on radial engine Grumman S2′s as an aircraft mechanic aboard the U.S.S. Intrepid. After his stint in the Navy he returned home and went right back to what he loved; cars! He began working on cylinder heads with the struggling Racing Head Service, and in just a few years decided to start Competition Cams with a few other members from RHS. The mission at COMP would be to take a new approach in designing engine components as they would put as much engineering emphasis as possible up front. Computer design was brought into the mix quickly. This method is more commonplace today, but in the mid 1970′s it was revolutionary and as such the quality of COMP products became known quickly! Today Competition Cams is a cornerstone in the industry and the COMP Performance Group is made up of several well know parts companies besides just COMP Cams such as RHS, TCI, and Fast! Scooter is also the chair elect to the board of directors for SEMA and it’s his goal to make it known that SEMA has far more to offer than just an annual trade show. SEMA has several programs already implemented to help other businesses in the automotive aftermarket industry, and Scooter would like to see that become more known and used. He’d also like to extend data sharing between the OEM’s and the aftermarket, and continue to keep the SAN (SEMA Action Network) busy in Washington to protect the interest of car guys everywhere! I genuinely enjoyed my interview with Scooter. When I asked him what he had in the garage he remarked that his favorite car was a little Nash Metropolitan. His dad, a Nash mechanic, would be proud! Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! ======================= Robert Kibbe | TheMuscleCarPlace.com

Click HERE to download the podcast show in iTunes! News I am now a writing contributor with PowerTV Media! Happy Thanksgiving! Feature Segment Another Mopar Muscle Engine Challenge, another win for Scott Schurbon! Photo Courtesy Amsoil. Scott Schurbon has had a life-long love affair with Mopars. His buddy’s big-block Mopar caught him at a young age, and the Mopar flame in him was lit to never go out! Today Scott is the owner and proprietor of Schurbon Engine Service in Maquoketa, IA and his shop specializes in high quality engine work of all kind. Scott’s biggest engine building passion though is in building high horsepower Mopar engines, and for the past several years he’s been the force to contend with at the Amsoil Mopar Muscle Engine Building Challenge. Each year the Challenge is held around the same time as the Mopar Nationals, and the rules differ each time. Some years the goal is strictly horsepower, while in others it’s a competition of horsepower/dollar. This year the goal was to make the best horsepower per cub inch, and Scott and his team won with a very creatively built small block! His 340 made 511.3 Horsepower, which equaled 1.504 horsepower per cubic inch. The leader board tells the story! Scott loves talking Mopars and his interview was at the request of podcast listener Hal Sprague. If you have any questions for Scott concerning your Mopar build just call or e-mail him at the following. He even works on Ford and Chevy applications! schurbons@yahoo.com 563-652-3100