Unless you’ve been way out of the country or otherwise seriously indisposed over the past couple of years, you may have missed the fact that the Ford Bronco has become very attractive to collectors and restorers quite recently. A lot of first-generation Broncos, the compact Jeep-like rigs that Ford first produced in 1966, having been bringing serious money at a variety of auctions in well-restored condition now that things like Volkswagen microbuses have soared out of sight. The later, bigger post-1978 Broncos based on the F-series, of O.J. Simpson infamy, have themselves graduated to something that’s well beyond the usual used-vehicle fodder. Heck, Ford knows it had a good thing in the Bronco and is getting ready to re-introduce it for 2020. A new book from CarTech explores the history of this famed field Ford, from its conceptual days to the advent of the compact Bronco II, which later begat the Explorer.

In this book, lifelong Bronco enthusiast Todd Zuercher takes 192 hardcover pages to tell the vehicle’s story in text, engineering drawings, factory service bulletins and oh-so-many photos. All the factory special editions such as the Sport and the Ranger are covered fully, and most welcome is a separate chapter on competition Broncos, including the fleet by Bill Stroppe and the famed Big Oly Bronco of Parnelli Jones, who writes a foreword, the only racer to conquer the Indianapolis 500 and the Baja 1000. And who remembers that the drag-race transmission maven Doug Nash once ran a fiberglass-body Bronco as an NHRA Funny Car? The book retails for $42.95; an e-book is also offered at $37.95. Dial up 1-800-551-4754 and tell CarTech we sent you.

From the earliest days of his gilt-edged career in motorsports, Bobby Rahal has been known as a thinking man’s racing driver for the cerebral approach that he brought to his craft, whether in terms of selecting a car, setting it up properly or planning the way he intended to attack the race course. His intellect and discipline in racing won Rahal scores of major contests on road courses, but his career was capped by a storybook victory in the 1986 Indianapolis 500 as his car owner Jim Trueman, who died days later from cancer, looked on in admiration.

Rahal’s time behind the wheel spanned literally everything from small-bore sports cars to the shrieking turbocharged rockets of CART. After his driving days ended, Rahal was briefly a CART president and served time as head of the short-lived Jaguar Formula 1 team. He co-owns Indy car, IMSA and Jaguar I-PACE eTrophy teams, a string of automobile dealerships near Columbus, Ohio, and now shepherds the driving career of his talented son, Graham, focusing on Indy cars. Bobby Rahal is one of the really good ones, and his accomplishments have been recognized by his receipt of the Cameron R. Argetsinger Award for Outstanding Contributions to Motorsports. The award is named for the famed early pioneer of American road racing, especially at Watkins Glen, New York, and was presented to Rahal at a star-studded dinner held at the Corning Museum of Glass in nearby Corning, New York.

The award is sponsored by the International Motor Racing Research Center at Watkins Glen; on the left, J.C. Argetsinger makes the presentation of the cut-glass bowl to Rahal. He is the sixth recipient of the award. Previous honorees include0 Chip Ganassi, Richard Petty, Roger Penske, Mario Andretti, IMSA chief Jim France and the rest of the extended France family that founded and operate NASCAR.

As its 100th anniversary approached, Bentley marked it by disclosing its plans to mark the milestone by creating a trio of cars in ultra-limited editions for buyers with an appreciation of history. The first two, the Bentley Mulsanne W.O. Edition and the Continental GT Number 9 Edition, started the program off. This week, Bentley unveiled the last of the trio, the Continental GT Number 1 Edition by Mulliner. It’s extremely pricey – an exact total wasn’t immediately disclosed – and absolutely exclusive for those discriminating enough to join the club.

The Number 1 Edition is limited to just 100 examples for sale worldwide. See the subdued number one in the center of the grille? It’s intended to evoke the first of the great Blower Bentleys, the huge supercharged roadsters that ran consistently up front during international long-distance races beginning in the late 1920s. It’s a direct salute to the original supercharged 4.5-liter Bentley, Number 1, which set a lap record of 137 MPH at England’s sprawling Brooklands oval in 1932, driven by Tim Birkin, one of the original squad of “Bentley Boys” that made up the Crewe marque’s team of works drivers. Based on the Continental GT, the limited edition makes use of a 6.0-liter, twin-turbocharged W-12 for motivation, connected to an eight-speed automatic transmission with dual clutches. It’s available in the buyer’s choice of either Dragon Red II or Beluga as a finishing color, complete with 18-carat gold fender badging. As a nod to history, the Bentley Rotating Display in the instrument cluster features a tiny wheel spinner that’s reminiscent of the ones that held old Number 1’s wheels in place as it thundered across the uneven concrete banking at Brooklands.

It’s worthwhile news whenever magazines in today’s challenged publishing environment cut a deal to ensure their continued strength. That occurred this week as Racer Media & Marketing Inc., publishers of Racer magazine, announced that it has acquired Vintage Motorsport magazine, a veteran and very respected title that’s known as the “Journal of Motor Racing History. The deal was announced in Irvine, California, where Racer‘s editorial offices are based.

Vintage Motorsport will now join Racer, RACER.com and SportsCar, the latter being the official publication of the Sports Car Club of America, under the same ownership umbrella. “We are very excited to bring Vintage Motorsport under the RM&M banner,” said Paul Pfanner, Racer co-founder, president and CEO. “It is the most respected title covering historic motor racing – and racing history more broadly – in North America. As the new stewards of the brand, we will proudly carry the standard into the future while using the cross-platform promotional power of the RACER brand to expand the base of Vintage Motorsport’s audience.” The founder and longtime editor-in-chief of Vintage Motorsport, D. Randy Riggs, will continue to direct that magazine’s content following the acquisition. Seen in this photo by Racer are, from left, Racer Editor-In-Chief Laurence Foster, Riggs and Vintage Motorsport art director Paul Laguette.

If you’re going to take on a course that twists and jinks through 156 corners over 12.4 miles and encompasses more than 4,000 vertical feet of climb into the thin air, what kind of car do you require? First off, one with lots of rubber on the roadway. Second, one with an engine that can breathe effectively enough at high altitudes to continuously produce ground-quivering horsepower. The course described is this weekend’s Pikes Peak hillclimb in Colorado, and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ weapon of choice is a one-of-one muscle sedan, the Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody.

Any Hemi-powered Dodge will go like stink, but FCA’s engineers came up with 3.5 inches of extra body width for the Widebody, which will contest the 97th running of the Climb to the Clouds in the Exhibition class. The additional bodywork allows the Charger Hellcat to mount 20-inch Toyo Proxes tires on 11-inch rims, providing additional potential grip on the now-fully paved course. The SRT suspension is augmented by Bilstein shock absorbers and Brembo brake calipers all the way around, with six pistons up front. The supercharged 6.2-liter Hellcat Hemi gets a racing exhaust system, but the Charger still retains its air conditioning compressor to keep it within the hillclimb’s stock parameters for the Exhibition class. The driver will be hillclimb and rally stud Randy Pobst, and will join a Challenger SRT Hellcat that’s entered to compete at Pikes Peak in the Track Attack 1 category.

Over the past week, General Motors has made a couple of product announcements that certainly fall at opposite ends of the automotive spectrum. First, GM made news by announcing that buyers will be able to order a Domino’s pizza to be fresh and hot at pickup by tapping an icon on their 2017-and-up Chevrolet’s in-vehicle information screen. Domino’s, which was founded by a Duesenberg collector and once sponsored an Indy car team, is the newest national merchant to be added to Chevrolet Marketplace, the U.S. auto industry’s first in-vehicle digital platform for e-commerce.

Hot pizza’s like clean air; absolutely everyone will always give it a thumbs-up. However, GM’s other big news is arguably more consequential. America’s biggest carmaker plans to continue its inexorable pivot toward SUVs and the like by sinking an additional $20 million in upgrades into its Arlington Assembly plant in Texas, whose entire existence is based on building GM’s fleet of full-size SUVs. They include the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, the GMC Yukon and Yukon XL, and the Cadillac Escalade. Remember, Arlington Assembly is the plant where GM once built full-size, rear-drive passenger cars such as the Chevrolet Caprice and the Buick Roadmaster. The new improvements will include better conveyor systems, a new paint shop and other upgrades. This brings to $4.2 billion the total that GM has invested in full-size pickup and SUV assembly at Arlington, Flint, Michigan; and at Fort Wayne, Indiana. That’s atop other investments to increase production of diesel engines for the truck-based biggies in Moraine, Ohio, and a matching 10-speed automatic transmission at Toledo, Ohio.

First off, if you want to experience one of the world’s top celebrations of motorsports heritage, you owe it to yourself to undertake a journey to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in England. This year’s edition of the grand festival, located at the Goodwood Estate in Chichester, West Sussex, is about an hour from London and features a gathering of Land Speed Record cars when it gets underway next week. The world’s biggest auto manufacturers also turn out in droves for the festival, perhaps the largest and most prestigious auto-related happening in the United Kingdom. It’s kind of like Pebble Beach week in Monterey, California, in that regard. One of the participants is Ford, which disclosed that it’s planning to make a major announcement concerning its Ford GT program during the goings-on at Goodwood.

Ford did not enjoy a particularly memorable run recently at Le Mans with its GTs. Two GTs that were privately entered by Keating Racing, one of them the class winner in GTE-Am, were disqualified by the FIA following the 24-hour race for violations of fuel regulations. More recently, Ford announced its own plans for Goodwood, which will include a major announcement concerning the GT, appropriately to come on the Fourth of July. Ford’s new 760hp Shelby GT500 will make its U.K. debut alongside a racing Ford GT entered by Chip Ganassi Racing on the Goodwood hillclimb course. Other historic competition Fords being shown will include an M-Sport Ford World Rally Team’s Ford Fiesta WRC, the 2018 NASCAR championship-winning Team Penske Ford Fusion race car, the 1980 Ford Zakspeed Turbo Capri race car and gymkhana TEN star Ken Block’s Hoonitruck and Escort RS Cosworth. Following Le Mans, Ford could do well with some positive news for the GT program. As it stands now, the street version of the limited-production Ford GT gets its power from a 3.5-liter EcoBoost V-6 that produces 647hp. That’s less than the Shelby-ized Mustang generates, in a car with a base price that now approaches $500,000. We don’t know what Ford plans to announce in England but we’d bet it’s going to be very big news from a horsepower standpoint.

I was watching the tape-delayed final eliminations at the NHRA’s Summit Racing Equipment Nationals on FS1 from the lovely track in Norwalk, Ohio, that’s operated by the Bader family. Naturally, I came to my feet when the Top Fuel dragsters were running down their elimination ladder. The final round in Top Fuel was a stunner: Not because Steve Torrence walked away with the Wally – something he’s accomplished with metronome-precise frequency this year – but over the guy he beat to do it. The runner-up in Top Fuel was none other than Pat Dakin, a name that usually requires some deep digging in the history books to uncover.

Dakin is from Dayton, Ohio, and is a part-time runner in the Top Fuel ranks. He’s one of the sport’s dwindling number of living links to drag racing’s memorable pass who’s still competing. At Norwalk, Torrence bounced back from a late-round loss at Bristol, Tennessee to slap a .001-second advantage on Dakin at the tree, holding on for the win despite Dakin turning a strong 3.90 elapsed time in front of his hometown crowd. Dakin has, seemingly, been around forever. I remember watching him with my friend Bob Kelly during the NHRA Summernationals at Raceway Park in Englishtown, New Jersey, during the 1970s. If you dig far enough back in the history books, you’ll learn that Dakin placed second to Shirley Muldowney when she won the first of her three National Hot Rod Association Top Fuel world championships in 1977. More recently, Dakin was injured during a violent 1998 blowover crash at Heartland Park Topeka during a run against Doug Kalitta. Dakin, who’s now 73 and runs Commercial Metal Fabricators in Dayton, took a 10-year layoff after that harrowing crash, but he’s back now and he’s competitive when he chooses to run, having advanced from the No.14 qualifying spot at Norwalk. Know what they say about how old guys rule? Let’s give a tip of the hat to this one.

The horsepower wars of the 1960s, as they involved muscle cars, seem pathetically wimpy compared to what’s taking place today. Ford has just thrown down a lead-lined gauntlet, boasting that the 2020 version of the Mustang-based Shelby GT500 will produce an honest 760hp and 625-lbs.ft. of torque from 5.2 supercharged liters of displacement. That’s a direct shot fired across the bow of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and specifically, its Dodge Challenger Hellcat, which the new Shelby will clearly out-power in its newest guise. In fact, the GT500 will stand as the most powerful street-legal Ford automobile ever produced.

As you gaze in respectful silence at this newest destroyer from Dearborn, consider a few facts. First, the GT500 will be offered only with a seven-speed Tremec automatic transmission; no conventional clutched manual would dare be used to harness this kind of output. And while Ford guarantees the performance figures, it’s quick to note that they are only achieved through the use of premium unleaded fuel, no low-cost proposition these days. Still, the blown V-8 will move the GT500 right to the pinnacle of American performance cars in terms of pure numbers, outstripping both the Hellcat and the 600hp Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 – at least for now. This is a welcome frenzy that shows no signs of abating soon. I have to say, I just wish Ol’ Shel was still around to see and drive this.

It used to be that a “coupe” was a close-coupled passenger vehicle with seating for two, or maybe 2+2, the third and fourth passengers relegated to occasional status. No more, especially at BMW. Production starts next month for the anticipated September launch of the 2020 8 Series Gran Coupe line. Virtually all new from the windshield back, the 2020 8 Series coupes make the persuasive case that at BMW, you can have an exceptional level of performance and luxury with four doors, to boot.

This photo (a European-market model is depicted) shows what BMW’s concept of a Gran Coupe looks like. It’s 9.0 inches longer, 1.2 inches wider and 2.2 inches taller than the current 8 Series. Interior capacity, in terms of square feet, is likewise increased. A variety of lightweight materials are utilized in the Gran Coupe’s construction, including aluminum for the doors, hood, roof, front bulkhead, engine subframe and rear bumper support. The trunk lid is made from dent-resistant plastic, while the cabin dashboard support is made from magnesium and parts of the center driveline tunnel are made from carbon-fiber reinforced plastic. Rear-wheel and all-wheel-drive models will be offered, with a whole array of electronic driver aids that are becoming the norm in this class of vehicle. Standard power is a 3.0-liter inline-six with turbocharging and 335hp; the optional engine is a 4.4-liter V-8 with twin turbochargers that produces 523hp. The driveline is a standard eight-speed Steptronic Sport transmission. Suspension technology includes double wishbones up front with five links at the rear. When the new Gran Coupes go on sale, prices will range from $84,900 to $108,900.