Muscle Car Digital Magazine

[Steve Holmes]

How cool is this! Thats Christophe Schwartz (pictured left) with his team and his mighty big block Hemi powered Dodge Charger stock car. As well as the Charger, Christophe also races a Hemi powered 1970 Plymouth Cuda, plus a Dodge Viper. You could say he is a bit of a Mopar nut!

Christophe lives in Germany, but was born in France. Having the interest he does in motorsport history, of course, the Le Mans 24 Hour race is something very important to him, and it was while researching NASCAR stock cars that raced at Le Mans that he first discovered the Olympia Beer sponsored Dodge Charger raced in the 1976 event, by Hershel and Doug McGriff.

That discovery sparked a fascination with this effort, which eventually brought about the creation of this tribute car. Christophe began researching the 1976 Olympia Charger, and this brought him into contact with one of the team members from that program, Dick Pierson. It was Dick who found an original Dodge Charger USAC car for which Christophe began the monumental task to enter the 2006 Classic Le Mans 24 Hour event.

Classic Le Mans is held every two years, and while it takes place over 24 hours, its broken up into several different categories, based on vehicle age. Each group races for 1 hour, then stops while the next group races, rotating through each cycle. So while no car actually races for 24 hours, all going well, each should get in several hours of racing, in both daylight and at night.

Christophe and his team achieved their goal and made that 2006 event, marking 30 years since the original Olympia Charger raced at Le Mans. They've since returned for each subsequent event, and have had a great time doing so.

We'll bring you the full story on both the original Olympia Charger, and Christophe's awesome tribute car in Issue 2 of Muscle Car Digital Magazine.

[kiwisteve]

Just downloaded the first issue. Very nice, as you would expect. One suggestion I would make rtwould be to click to open larger photos. Great effort again.

[Steve Holmes]

Just downloaded the first issue. Very nice, as you would expect. One suggestion I would make rtwould be to click to open larger photos. Great effort again.

Hi Steve, sorry for the slow reply. Thanks heaps for the feedback. Did you find the photos in the articles too small? What sort of device do you have?

Thanks again

[Steve Holmes]

Hi everyone, for those who have Apple iPads, Issue 1 of Muscle Car Digital Magazine is now available for free download. Kerry, my business partner, and the one with the brains in the operation, has been working through the long and tiring process of getting it approved with Apple. The main problem was that we wanted Issue 1 to be free, whereas they are set up to charge for magazines, so this created all sorts of complications having it accepted.

Next step is to have a version available for viewing on laptop and desktop computers.

The FREE Apple iPad version is available for download here: Muscle Car Digital Magazine Issue 1

[Steve Holmes]

Here is one for the detail buffs. This is Craig Murray at Laguna Seca in 1970. In late 1969, Craig bought the '68 Penske Camaro driven by Mark Donohue from round 3 of the 1968 Trans-Am and which won nine of the eleven races it contested that season. Murray made very few changes to the car. In fact, right through to its current owner Tom McIntyre, this car was changed little throughout its career.

Whats interesting here is to note the sizeable gap at the top rear of the fender where it meets to windshield frame. Penske, like other factory teams, had all sorts of tricks for making their cars more competitive, including drooping the front sheet metal for better aerodynamics.

In the case of the Camaros, they cut a section from the top of the radiator support panel, then drooped all the front sheet metal down. This had a flow-on effect of making the front fenders ill-fitting, so they had to be extended and/or cut in specific areas to appear standard. The gap you can see here is either from fitting a standard fender, or not extending the modified fender enough to meet the windshield frame. Pretty cool huh!

About the only change Craig Murray made to this car, other than changing the race number, was to fit a wing mirror. None of the Penske cars from 1968 onwards wore wing mirrors.

Thanks to Tom McIntyre for the photo.

Check out the full history of this car in Issue 1 of Muscle Car Digital Magazine.

[Steve Holmes]

For those who haven't seen it, Issue 1 of the new digital magazine I'm involved with, Muscle Car Digital Magazine, is now available for FREE view on our website. Just follow the link, and click on the Cover image at the bottom of the page to be taken to the magazine. Its available on all devices, including tablet, and laptop/desktop computers.

Check it out here: www.musclecardigitalmagazine.com