Photos by Terry McGean and Mike Bumbeck.
We recently completed a special bonus issue of Hemmings Muscle Machines magazine devoted entirely to modified cars, something we haven’t previously done. The purpose of the project was to provide us with an outlet to present some of the more significantly altered cars we’ve come across in our travels, the stuff that might be a bit too radical for the pages of HMM‘s normal format.
Among the features in our All-Modified special is a piece on the 1960s-style altered wheelbase creations of Steve Magnante. You may recognize Steve from his television appearances as a commentator for the Speed Network’s coverage of Barrett-Jackson’s auction events, or from his byline in various performance-car magazines, and if so, you already know that Steve’s a hardcore gearhead.
According to his own accounts, Steve’s childhood was spent assembling model car kits, focusing on the radical dragstrip warriors that evolved during the 1960s. In time, Steve began engaging in “kit bashing,” where parts are scavenged from various model kits to create highly detailed likenesses of cars that have may have been overlooked by the retail kit makers. In a natural progression, as Steve came of age, he began to mess with real cars, following the hot rodding tendencies his early influences had inspired.
Finally, about a dozen years back, Steve’s worlds collided when he set out to build a life-size 1960s A/FX racer that would be fully functional. The twist was that the resulting racer would also have to be streetable, merging all the radical attitude of a period-accurate altered-wheelbase “match-bash” crowd pleaser while wearing current license plates.
To that end, Steve built a Chevy II patterned somewhat after Bill Thomas’s mid-1960s efforts and running a big-block Chevy with stack injection, a straight front axle hung from leaf springs and a rear axle moved forward significantly. A Dodge Dart would receive similar treatment a couple of years later; then, in a move that model kit bashers could surely appreciate, Steve built yet another altered car, this time as a “What if?” exercise, using a 1980s Ford Fairmont and a late-model Ford four-cam modular V-8.
We spent some time with Steve at his Massachusetts garage and even got some seat time in the Dart and Nova, and then reported on the cars, their creator, his philosophies and everything that entails in the Muscle Machines “All-Modified” special, set to hit newsstands in just a few weeks, paired up with the January issue; subscribers will see the special issue on its own in mailboxes soon.