Author Archives: John Gunnell

Just got back from a trip to Janesville to pickup a Ford V8-60 flathead from Rich Bickle at the Muscle-Up Hot Rod & Performance Shop there. BTW, Rich was rebuilding the motor on a 1954 Caddy ragtop that was recently … More »

Shortly after Gunner’s Great Garage opened in 2010, I bought a huge media blasting cabinet from Eastwood (www.eastwood.com) and it has done a lot of work for the shop. However, I am new to using a blaster and I have … More »

Another busy couple of days coming up. Today I will be doing a remote radio broadcast on the Keith Larson show in Charlotte. I do this twice a year around the time of the Hornet’s Nest Swap meet down their. … More »

On April 23 the Edelbrock Performance Academy opened at Ohio Technical College (www.ohiotechnicalcollege.com) in Cleveland. I will never forget my first visit to Ohio Technical College because it took place on the day that my mom passed away in 2009. … More »

Chevrolet introduced new styling in 1949 and kept it until 1952. During those years, the sporty Bel Air hardtop was also introduced. Fastback models tapered off in sales and went down to just a trickle. Convertibles and station wagons were … More »

I liked the philosophy of a collector I talked with last week. He still has a 2-seat T-Bird he bought as a used car. A few years after he bought it, he discovered it was worth more than when he … More »

When the cars that we collect today were new, many of us spent our afternoons watching a dance show. It wasn’t “Dancing With the Stars” — it was a time when teen-agers were the stars (the Boomer decade was booming) … More »

How much will (x job) cost? I charge $40 an hour for labor to restore an old car at Gunner’s great Garage. Parts and contract labor are additional. I read that the average cost of labor for all repair shops … More »

Body shop owner Robert Reese was after us for a long time to take pictures of the Bernardi Bearcat that he was working on in his Green Lake, Wis., shop. Last Saturday we got to take photos of it and … More »

Saturday evening I spoke at the Packerland Region Vintage Chevrolet Club of America dinner. Someone asked what was the best car show I’d been to in my 40 years in the hobby. I told them it was the 2008 Old … More »