Automatic transmissions are now used in most street machines, street rods, off-road vehicles, and drag race cars. With the addition of recalibration kits and new forward and reversed valve bodies, ...

Pity the poor Powerglide. The two-speed automatic, when introduced in 1950, brought automatic transmission availability to lower-priced cars and became ubiquitous in Chevrolets of the 1950s and ’60s.

Jack Hardgraves had had enough. A friend bought a Thunderbird “and proceeded to humiliate Jack in front of the crowd at the local dragstrip Sunday after Sunday. The gap wasn’t big, but it was there, ...