1972 Pontiac Lemans Luxury 2 Door Power Steering Power Disc Brakes **cold A/c** on 2040-cars

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The U-2 spy plane needs high-performance cars to help land

Typically, aircraft deploy their landing gear from three main points. Most military aircraft, for example, deploy two gears at the back and one forward, like a tricycle. Some civilian aircraft flip the layout, with two in front and one in back - tail-draggers. The U-2 Dragon Lady is wildly different than any of these. With a 103-foot wingspan but a body that's just 63-feet long, the layout of the U-2 makes a traditional landing setup infeasible. Instead, the U-2 utilizes a pair of wheels, one up front and one in back. With such a bizarre layout, landings are so tough that since the U-2's earliest flights at Area 51, the US Air Force has used high-performance chase cars to guide the pilot down safely. The landing process isn't over there, though. As this video from Sploid shows, balancing out the aircraft to fit the detachable "pogos" – think training wheels for spy planes – is a comical procedure requiring a number of airman using their full body weight to even out the U-2. This video also recaps some of the great vehicles that have served as chase vehicles for this legendary spy plane. They include Chevrolet El Caminos, and the Fox-body Ford Mustangs so favored by the California Highway Patrol. For the last several years, the USAF has utilized products from General Motors, using fourth-generation Chevy Camaros, before switching over to the Pontiac GTO and most recently, the awesome Pontiac G8. It's fair to say that if you're a gearhead in the Air Force, this is the job you want. Check out the video, embedded up top. News Source: Sploid via YouTubeImage Credit: Sploid Chevrolet Ford GM Pontiac Military Performance Videos

Online Find: 1970 Pontiac Firebird Concept, cousin of the Weinermobile

So there's this for sale over at Hemmings: the 1970 Pontiac Firebird One concept designed by Harry Bentley Bradley and built by Dave Crook. For sale at the time of writing in Bellevue, Washington for $94,950, most of the seller's description appears to be pulled from a 2001 Barrett-Jackson listing, when the car was sold at auction for $61,600. Before we get to the car, it helps to know the man behind it: Bradley was a designer at General Motors from 1962 to 1966 who, against company policy, continued to submit designs to Hot Rod magazine under an assumed name. Mattel poached him in 1966 to design its brand new toy line called Hot Wheels, and Bradley designed all of them except one. He only stayed at Mattel for a year because he didn't think Hot Wheels would be successful, then left to start his own design company. Among other works, he penned the most recent example of the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. Now can you see the Firebird One's design language? Since it apparently has a letter of documentation from GM design staff, we'll assume that GM asked the then-freelancing Bradley to work some magic on its muscle car, this being the totally Hot-Wheels influenced result. There are 17,456 miles on its 255-horsepower, 350 cubic-inch V8. The interior has tan leather, custom bucket seats, a wood grain dash, and one of the most awkward spare tire placements ever. The seller assures all prospective buyers that it is, like the Death Star, "fully operational."

What car brand should come back?

Congratulations, wishful thinker! You've been granted one wish by the automotive genie or wizard or leprechaun or whoever has been gifted with that magical ability. You get to pick one expired, retired or fired automotive brand and resurrect it from its heavenly peace! But which one? That's a tough decision and not one to be made lightly. As we know from car history, the landscape is littered with failed brands that just didn't have what it took to cut it in the dog-eat-dog world of vehicle design, engineering and marketing. So many to choose from! Because I am not a car historian, I'll leave it to a real expert to present a complete list of history's automotive misses from which you can choose, if you're a stickler about that sort of thing. And since I'm most familiar with post-World War II cars and brands, that's what I'm going to stick to (although Maxwell, Cord and some others could make strong arguments). So, with the parameters established, let's get started, shall we? Hudson: I admit, I really don't know a lot about Hudson, except that stock car drivers apparently did pretty well with them back in the day, and Paul Newman played one in the first Cars movie. But really, isn't that enough to warrant consideration? Frankly, I think the Paul Newman connection is reason enough. What other actor who drove race cars was cooler? James Dean? Steve McQueen? James Garner? Paul Walker? But, I digress. That's a story for another day. Plymouth: As the scion of a Dodge family (my grandfather had a Dodge truck, and my mom had not one, but two Dodge Darts – the rear-wheel-drive ones with slant sixes in them, not the other one they don't make any more), I tend to think of Plymouth as the "poor man's Dodge." But then you have to consider the many Hemi-powered muscle cars sold under the Plymouth brand, such as the Road Runner, the GTX, the Barracuda, and so on. Was there a more affordable muscle car than Plymouth? When you place it in the context of "affordable muscle," Plymouth makes a pretty strong argument for reanimation. Oldsmobile: When I was a teenager, all the cool kids had Oldsmobile Cutlasses, the downsized ones that came out in 1978. At one point, the Olds Cutlass was the hottest selling car in the land, if you can believe that. Then everybody started buying Honda Civics and Accords and Toyota Corollas and Camrys, and you know the rest. But going back farther, there's the 442 – perhaps Olds' finest hour when it came to muscle cars.