Day One: An Automotive Journalist's Muscle-Car Memoir

In Day One, automotive journalist Marty Schorr recalls life on the front line in the classic muscle car era, thrashing brand-new cars that would become collector vehicles.

Most muscle-car books celebrate beautifully-restored vehicles surrounded by hard facts; Day One tells the real story from the point-of-view of one of the period’s most respected automotive journalists, Marty Schorr. For the first time in print, you’ll get a unique perspective on what it was like to actually drive, race, and otherwise thrash what are some of today's most valuable collector cars.

CARS, the iconic magazine Marty wrote and edited didn't rely on industry advertising for revenue. Instead, the magazine made money the old fashioned way, from newsstand sales, leaving it able to be honest and frank in its coverage of high-performance street cars. CARS magazine reported on both Day stock and modified cars, cars the traditional magazines wouldn't touch, like the ultra-high-performance vehicles from companies like Baldwin-Motion, Yenko Chevrolet, Nickey Chevrolet, Royal Pontiac, and Tasca Ford.

Prepare yourself for Day One to cover the most important cars of a given year, including:

• Pontiac’s 1962-1963 lightweight Super-Duty 421 street and Swiss Cheese models
• Chevrolet’s 1963 big-block 427 Mystery Motor and ZL-1 Impala.
• Ford 1963 ½ 427/425 Galaxie fastback
• The 1964 Ramchargers
• The first 426 Street Hemi
• Cotton-Owens prepared Hemi Coronet
• A 1966 Olds Twin-Engined (850 cubic inches) Grant Toronado, currently owned by Jay Leno
• A prototype 1966 Plymouth 426 Street Hemi Satellite
• One of two 427 SOHC Galaxies prototypes
• A ’67 Royal Bobcat GTO
• Plymouth’s original ’68 Hemi Road Runner
• Hurst-built Plymouth & Dodge 1968 Hemi-Darts and Hemi-Cudas