101 GM Muscle Car Performance Projects (Motorbooks Workshop) [Paperback]

Colin Date (Author), Mitch Burns (Author)

Book Description

Series: Motorbooks Workshop | Publication Date: August 26, 2005

Many of the most popular cars of the muscle era came from General Motors. Spread across the General's various marques were models like the Camaro, Chevelle, GTO, Cutlass, Skylark, Tempest, Impala, Monte Carlo, El Camino, and many others. This book will provide 101 hands-on, how-to projects aimed directly at fans of classic GM muscle, showing them how to do just the kinds of projects that they want to do: restoration of the exterior and interior, and performance upgrades to the engine, driveline, and suspension.The existence of many large aftermarket companies provides evidence of the vast potential audience for this book. Restoration and performance part companies like Year One, National Parts Depot, Summit Racing, Jegs, and Original Parts Group count on this audience to provide a large portion of their business. For example, Original Parts Group, which specializes exclusively in parts for GM A-body muscle cars, sells an average of $100,000 worth of parts each day. Primedia alone has six magazines that serve this crowd (Hot Rod, Car Craft, Chevy High Performance, High Performance Pontiac, Popular Hot Rodding, Super Chevy) with a combined circulation of 1.7 million readers per month.Like the 101 series books before it, this book provides an immense quantity of do-it-yourself projects that are accessible to the at-home mechanic who has a good set of hand tools and a place to work. Procedures will be performed on specific GM cars of this era, which differed more in sheetmetal and trim than in the functional components, which were often similar or identical from car to car.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Colin Date is the author of Original Mustang 1964 1/2-1966 and the photographer for the Ultimate Auto Detailing Projects. He has been a freelance writer whose for a variety of muscle car magazines and currently publishes Legendary Ford Magazine.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Motorbooks; First edition (August 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760317569
• ISBN-13: 978-0760317563
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,392,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Vague., September 16, 2011

By 

B. Weber - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 101 GM Muscle Car Performance Projects (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

Unless you can get this book for a song, FORGET IT! The "projects" are, at best, extreamly vague. Each "project" is explained within two pages. When you add photos to those pages it does not leave much space for things like details. As an example, Project 3 "Removing, Inspecting, and Refinishing the Steering Column" consists of 12 short paragraphs on what is actually a pretty significant project (especially for an amateur restorer). One sentence states: "Then, remove the turn signal lever and the ignition cylinder lock." That is all the instruction there is. Whereas, removing the turn signal lever is quite simple, removing the ignition lock cylinder has driven experienced mechanics crazy. On the other hand, I liked the two pages dedicated to reinforcing floorboards using POR-15 paint, it's just too bad the authors failed to explain POR-15's dual coat painting system that requires waiting 15 minute between separate paint coats. One would have to read the POR-15 instructions for that information, and that requirement negates the usefulness (if there really is any) of this book. Motorbooks strikes out again.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good book!, July 9, 2008

By 

Martin Jordan (Ca United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 101 GM Muscle Car Performance Projects (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

I ordered this book along with How to Restore Your Muscle Car. Overall its a good book, with lots of projects that are broken down and organized well. The projects don't go as in depth as, say a factory shop manual, but give you an idea of what you need for parts, tools, and the like. If you have a muscle car and want to know about some upgrades you can do to the engine, or if you want to know how to take off some of the stainless trime, etc this is the book for you. Its a great supplement to any other "how to" books you may already own.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Do not waste your money, December 8, 2009

By 

tano (staten island, new york) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: 101 GM Muscle Car Performance Projects (Motorbooks Workshop) (Paperback)

Let me lead off by saying that I bought this book used for $1.00 and all in it cost me $5.00 with shipping which was too much for what it offers.

I have restored my share of Muscle Cars over the years and I am fairly skilled when it comes to 68-72 GM A bodies. This book should have been titled 101 "suggestions" not projects. There is absolutely not enough information within any of these projects to give you a feel or guidance to what you are getting yourself into.

For example, there is one project titled upholstery. For laughs, it has a time frame indicator of a few hours (I don't have the book in front of me, but I think it quoted 2 hours labor) and the only pictures it shows is the bottom of a seat to show where the hog rings are and another to show you a pair of hog ring pliers. It is a total of two pages long. If anyone reading this has ever attempted replacing seat covers, you know it can take 2 hours to carefully disassemble a bucket seat, let alone clean, repair and begin replacing the covers. I have seen more in depth information in magazine articles. I didn't even bother reading the sections on engine and head rebuilding and I hope no one else gearing up for such a project does either.

I realize you may have another opinion of this book, but I can honestly say that of all the literature on restorations I have bought over the years, this was positively useless.