Would you let this guy design your BMW?

Our guy on the West coast, Aaron Von Minden is sort of an automotive Jekyll and Hyde type of guy. Here in The Garage, we see the monster side of this creative genius with all manner of retro American kool. The more mild mannered daily face Von Minden wears doesn’t appear very often here in The Garage, as the two personalities don’t always play nicely together.

After close to a decade, Aaron has decided to leave BMW’s prestigious Designworks USA. 3 years with BMW body shops led to a long stint at Designworks, where Von Minden took part in some seriously impressive projects. McLaren F1, MINI, Rolls Royce. Aaron built design models for all of them, not to mention many internal projects that may not have been seen by prying outside eyes.

I’m sure the powers that be at BMW will be sad to see him go, as should future BMW owners. For those of us who get excited by the work that the Savage side of Aaron’s abilities create, you can be sure that he has only just begun. Next up on the resto train is a sweet Hemi powered 1970 Road Runner!

We’ll have pics of that beast soon

We’re always looking for great content to share with our readers here in The Garage. Recently, we’ve been speaking with the folks at Muscle Car News about helping to spread the word about their mag. If we can help out some fellow Canucks and score some new content at the same time, we are more than happy to oblige.

Today’s spotlight on a 1970 Road Runner was written by Bill Holder with photos by Phil Kunz

High performance and low cost were Plymouth’s design goals for a brand-new model in 1968. The company believed that the time was right for a factory hot rod for the youth market, and its guess was right on the money. It would have the macho name of Road Runner. It was also a very “B Body” budget-friendly machine which made it another very important reason for purchasing. The high cost ruled out many of the muscle cars of the era.
Continue reading →

Unfortunately, Vegas is more than an afternoon jaunt from Toronto, so we weren’t able to make our way down this week for the 2007 SEMA show. Fortunately for us, the viral spin doctors over at Car Crazy Central are working hard to get the word out and have supplied us with a few images that they haven’t published themselves at SEMA Insider.

The shot above is a super tricked out Scion Xb, but there was more than just news school at this year’s show. After the break, there are a couple of more traditional rides for us old guys!
Continue reading →

Bullitt or Vanishing point? Charger or Challenger? For my non existent budget, I’ll go with Kowalski’s choice, but for Top Gear’s Richard Hammond…well, he’s British! In this episode of Top Gear, Hammond spends some quality, non destructive time in a Dodge Charger R/T powered by a 440. Oddly, he says the 440 is the car. Apparently he’s never heard of a Hemi car, but I suppose we need to cut him some slack. The head injury must have affected his judgement.

Thanks to Carscoop for finding this one.
Continue reading →

It looks like Ontario is set to become the muscle car capital of North America. Following The General’s decision to build the next generation Camaro in Oshawa, Chrysler has announced that it’s new machine will be built at it’s Brampton plant. When production begins in the summer of 2008, that will bring the total models built in Brampton to 7. It’s a good time to be an autoworker in Ontario these days.

For someone who spends a good chunk of time reading automotive stuff, I missed the fact that Chrysler is about to lay off 2000 people at Brampton. Perhaps not such a good time to work for Chrysler, even with exciting products coming down the pipe.

Chrysler press release after the break
Continue reading →

Remember the first Dakota? It was one of the first mid size pickups, maybe even the first. Much larger than the little offerings from Japan, but much smaller than the full size trucks of it’s domestic cousins. It was a great truck for the small contractor who wasn’t carrying a huge load or towing much more than a utility trailer. The new 2008 Dakota has been revealed and it certainly exceeds anything those old trucks could do. It even beats most of the basic half tons from the eighties too. This thing has a tow rating of a whopping 7,050 pounds, all the while carrying the whole family in four door comfort. It looks great too.

Get all the details from Dodge and tons of photos after the break.
Continue reading →

We all dream about the ellusive barn car. You know the one, you’re driving around the countryside and see the tail end of some classic peeking out of the corner of a barn. Bruce Cliche has a couple of those barn cars, that is if you can call over 600 a couple. There are parts on top of parts. A couple of dozen school buses and a farm house full of engines, manifolds, cylinder heads and more. There is even a bus full of Muncie 4 speed trannies!

Continue reading →

All those dress up bits are real, even the blower! Things getting a bit smokey? No problem, those exhaust tips do the trick for real. These customer BBQ machines even come with LED lights and switches for when the lights go out in The Garage and an mp3 player to provide the tuneage.

For more pics visit Neatorama

So the HEMI powered BBQ is cool as hell, but something like this is more likely to show up here in The Garage. Tired of SCCA H Production? Just pull the blown 1275 and drop in a grill!

From Classic Jaguar

Now we need one of these in The Garage! Tim Kowalec built this HEMI powered BBQ for Chrysler’s “What can you HEMI?” contest.

For other cool BBQ stuff, be sure to visit Men In Aprons