In a landmark move to celebrate and share its storied automotive history, the Ford Motor Company launched the Ford Heritage Vault in June 2022. This expansive digital archive grants public access to over a century’s worth of materials from Ford, Lincoln, and the now-retired Mercury brands. Created as part of Ford’s efforts to make its heritage more accessible and to commemorate the company’s 119th anniversary, the Heritage Vault is a goldmine for car enthusiasts, historians, collectors, educators, and anyone with a passion for American automotive culture.

When it comes to classic television detectives, few were as cool — or as car-savvy — as Joe Mannix, played by Mike Connors in the long-running CBS series Mannix (1967–1975). A tough, street-smart private investigator with a penchant for physical confrontations and old-fashioned grit, Mannix was also notable for the parade of stylish, performance-oriented automobiles he drove across the show’s eight seasons. These cars not only underscored his rugged yet sophisticated persona, but also became stars in their own right, many of them customized by legendary car builder George Barris, of Batmobile fame.

Let’s take a deep dive into the cars Mike Connors drove as Joe Mannix, season by season.

The 75th Annual O'Reilly Auto Parts Grand National Roadster Show, presented by Meguiar’s, celebrated America’s longest-running indoor car show. From January 31 to February 2, 2025, the Pomona Fairplex hosted hundreds of the nation’s finest hot rods, customs, muscle cars, trucks, and motorcycles for a weekend that showcased automotive artistry of the highest level.

Though we spend our five- and six-day work weeks catering to the needs of our honored customers who own and are working on, driving, showing, and enjoying American muscle machines, many Classic Industries employees are wrenching away, driving, and enjoying our own vintage vehicles in our free time. Some of us drive our old cars daily. 

Waylon Krumrie has been a classic car enthusiast since he was seven years old. His pony car passion began when he first saw his grandfather, Rex Krumrie's, 1968 Cougar XR-7. The elder Krumrie purchased the Cougar from his former boss way back in 1971, when the cat had just a scant 30K miles. Waylon's grandmother, Sallye, mainly drove the car.

The Fabulous Fords Forever show made a triumphant return on Sunday, June 13, in Irwindale, California. Drawing more than 1,000 Ford cars, including Mustangs (Classic, Fox Body, SN95, New Edge, S197, S550), Falcons, Cougars, Thunderbirds, Broncos, and F100s, and thousands of Ford fans, the long-running So Cal show was a massive hit in it's first appearance at Irwindale Speedway!

Ford Lincoln-Mercury's second pony car was the 2nd generation Mercury Capri. For the sake of clarity and brevity, its moniker was simply the Mercury Capri, as opposed to the Ford Lincoln-Mercury Capri. Like the Mercury Cougar from 1967-1974, the 2nd generation Mercury Capri (1979-1986) shared the Mustang chassis that Ford produced at the time. This go round though Ford manufactured an all new chassis for the Ford Mustang known as the Fox platform from 1979-1993, it's 3rd generation platform for the original pony car. In this article, we'll examine Mercury Capri history and how it changed from 1979 to 1986.

The Lincoln-Mercury division of Ford introduced a big sister car to the Ford Falcon in March of 1960 called the Mercury Comet. Though still classified as a compact car, the Comet was a foot longer than the Ford Falcon. Back in the day it was called a “senior compact”. Having the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, many automotive historians now recognize the Comet as the first midsized car. Read on as we look back at Mercury Comet history across six generations, from 1960 through 1977

The Lincoln-Mercury division of the Ford Motor Company produced the Mercury Cougar from 1967 through 1997 and from 1999 through 2002. Throughout the Cougar's 34-year production run there are eight distinct generations of the car.

The great-looking and eventually race-dominating Mercury Cyclone was produced from 1964 through 1972. Formerly known as the Comet with the S-22 performance package, the Cyclone started off life as the performance version of the compact Comet, from 1964 through 1967. In this article, we'll take a look back at Mercury Cyclone history and some of the details that made this model a legend.