Courtesy of: Boston Business Journal

Herb Chambers’ name is synonymous with his car dealership empire ­— ­as well as his ubiquitous commercial jingle.

Roaring through Mass. in the McLaren F1

I was about 12 years old when I saw my first McLaren F1. Saw, not as millions of others did from the cover of a Road & Track issue, but saw, as in hearing my father say, “Hey, what’s that coming behind us?”, turning around, and watching the blessed Messiah of all exotic cars pass our Mercury Sable and literally part the interstate traffic.

We were mere miles from our home in Connecticut, and I was freaking out for another 20. No, Mom, that is not a kit car! It’s the fastest production car on earth.

At that time, I knew I had seen one of just seven McLarens in the entire United States, and I knew I would never see one again. I found out later that a company in Danbury, about 35 minutes away, was importing all the F1s from the factory in Woking, England, proof that Connecticut was the center of the universe.

In 2005, I witnessed the second coming of the F1 at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, which was holding an exhibition of Ralph Lauren’s cars. I hardly moved from the velvet rope, despite Lauren’s impressive collection. Two sightings in one lifetime? This had to be the last time I would see an F1.

McLaren made roughly 100 road and race versions between 1993 and 1998, and it’s impossible to cite the exact number in the US today. Some people say there are more than 20; Chambers thinks there’s about a dozen. (And he should know. Jay Leno bought one after taking a ride with him.) Facebook groups and message boards claiming to document each McLaren try their hardest, but the owners of these cars rarely come up in the news unless one catches on fire or gets sold at auction for more than $4 million.

Herb Chambers Car Collection - McLaren F1

Last month, Chambers decided to drop his McLaren at his new BMW showroom in Sudbury, just 20 miles west of Boston. So I asked what anyone would in this rare moment, short of begging: can I please, please, please go for a ride? Chambers obliged, and on a sunny November I found myself holed into the F1’s left side, yanking the butterfly door shut, and trying to resist a hyper fit of feet stomping and flailing arms.

To be assaulted by such a high power-to-weight ratio, deafened by a 627 horsepower V-12, and stared at by every driver on the road is the car enthusiast’s reason for living. What, I wondered, would I do now for the rest of my life? The afterlife won’t be able to match being inside a McLaren at full-bore, running and running while the planet stands still.

For Herb and all the well-heeled car lovers with McLarens, here’s hoping, then, for a long life.

Somerville-based Herb Chambers helps spread awareness of drowsy driving dangers

Herb Chambers – The value of confidence

Workers want a leader they can believe in

By Elizabeth Cooney, Globe Correspondent

HERB CHAMBERS WAS in the middle of expanding his car sales business when the recession hit, but he kept right on going with plans to open new dealerships and expand others. Now Chambers is hiring, and employees are glad they’re at a company that’s growing while their industry is gasping.

When the climate is gloomy, employees want company leaders to offer confidence, communication, and a sense that a bright future is being built.

Workers at these companies believe their professional fate is in good hands:

Herb Chambers Cos.: Twenty-five years ago, it wasn’t the norm for an auto dealer’s service department to wash the cars before returning them to customers, but Herb Chambers did it. “My feeling was a clean car always ran better than dirty one did,’’ said Chambers, head of his namesake business.

This year, going against the grain meant completing $50 million in new facilities. It’s that kind of thinking that has allowed Chambers auto dealerships to grow while other dealers are struggling or even closing down.

That sits well with employees, especially in the high-pressure world of auto sales. “I think it gives our people a great deal of confidence,’’ Chambers said. “They feel good about our company. They believe they are in the right place.’’

One after another, Chambers employees surveyed for Top Places cited the boss himself and the company’s growth as reasons for their satisfaction.

Not that Chambers has escaped the recession entirely. Sales are down 19 percent this year compared to last year, when the expansion was planned. But national numbers are down even more: from 30 to 34 percent.

“We never had a doubt about the future,’’ said Michael Hannafin, service director at Flagship Motorcars, a newly refurbished Chambers dealership in Lynnfield. “He’s a guy who believes in what he is doing. That trickles down.’’

Hannafin said Chambers recently pulled aside a manager who had reorganized a parts department, saying he wanted the rest of the company to copy the system. “You can’t measure what that does for an employee,’’ Hannafin said. “That guy was on cloud nine and the rest of his team was motivated, because he was singled out in a positive way by the CEO of the company.’’

Article Courtesy of:  GM Press Release

Combining the vintage style of the 1966 Olds Toronado with the contemporary punch of a 1,070-horsepower twin-turbocharged V-8 GM Performance Parts prototype crate engine, Jay Leno cruises Burbank , Calif. in a sophisticated blend of classic style and cutting-edge technology.

Equipped with numerous parts under consideration by GM Performance Parts (GMPP), the Toronado has a factory-look appearance, with restored bodywork and a mostly stock interior – but under the sheet metal lies a modified C5 Corvette chassis and suspension, along with the sophisticated twin-turbocharged prototype crate engine and a Corvette rear transaxle.

“This is a vintage American answer to expensive European grand tourers,” Leno said. “There is an unmistakable character here that exemplifies confident American car design – and it just happens to be backed up by, oh, a thousand horsepower and the reflexes of a Corvette.”

The car was built at Leno’s Big Dog Garage, in suburban Los Angeles , under the direction of builder Bernard Juchli.

Leno was attracted to the Toronado for its distinctive styling and historical significance – it was the first high-volume front-wheel-drive car produced by GM. It was originally powered by a 425-cubic-inch V-8 that was connected to the front wheels via a robust transaxle, a combination which pre-dated the industry’s almost universal conversion to front-wheel drive by about 15 years.

The groundbreaking styling was the work of GM’s famed designer Bill Mitchell, who styled an automobile that was lauded by critics when new and has been remembered as one of the most important design statements of the 1960s.

“It was a forward-looking car almost 40 years ago and its style still looks contemporary today,” Leno said. “The prominent fender flares are features you see on countless new vehicles, so the car still has a smart, contemporary look when you apply current trends like 17-inch wheels and tires – it’s a natural fit.”

Leno’s car, while still powered by a 425-cubic-inch engine, sends power to the rear wheels by way of a C5 Corvette transaxle. In fact, a C5 chassis was modified and grafted beneath the Toronado’s bodywork. The Corvette’s sturdy hydroformed chassis was cut at the firewall area and lengthened 14 inches to the rear, which pushed the wheels into position within the car’s fenders. The basic suspension – aluminum double wishbones with a transverse leaf spring, both in the front and rear – was retained, although new springs and Bilstein shocks were added to fine-tune the car’s handling and support the Toronado’s heavier steel body.

The car sits on contemporary 17-inch Bridgestone Redline tires and custom aluminum wheels designed to evoke the look of the original hub-prominent versions. What wasn’t altered, however, was the car’s bodywork or color. The original-look Trumpet Gold hue was reapplied with a modern base coat/clear coat paint system from BASF and the car’s body was restored to its factory-original appearance.

“The Toronado has a bold design – there was nothing like it then or since, and we didn’t want to mess with Bill Mitchell’s original styling,” Leno said. “Every piece of original trim has been restored or replaced to make sure the car looks authentic.”

Two hairdryers, no waiting

Reaching the 1,000-horsepower threshold for the Toronado’s engine was achieved with an intercooled twin-turbocharger system pumping 19 pounds of boost into a GM Performance Parts prototype 425-cubic-inch small-block crate engine. Developed in conjunction with GM Performance Division, the engine uses a modified aluminum block and cylinder heads from the Cadillac CTS-V racing program. They’ve been reconfigured to work as a high-performance street engine – a must for Leno, as he intends to use the Toronado as a daily driver.

Although not currently offered for sale by GM Performance Parts, the high-performance 425 engine serves as a real-world evaluator for potential new products.

“All the basic elements of this engine will soon be available in either the GM Performance Parts catalog or elsewhere in the GM parts system,” said Will Handzel, group manager, GM Performance Parts. “Participating in projects such as Jay’s Toronado gives GMPP the opportunity to ‘clinic’ high-performance combinations and evaluate ideas we might not otherwise would have considered. This engine made 1,000 horses without too much trouble, and it already has us thinking of future crate engine possibilities.”

A GM Performance-spec’d forged steel crankshaft and connecting rods are used on the bottom end of the 425 engine, along with custom forged aluminum pistons. When pushing up toward the CNC-ported aluminum cylinder heads, the pistons deliver an 8.3:1 compression ratio – a relatively low compression ratio required to ward off detonation in a turbocharged engine. The cavernous heads channel the huge volume of air generated by a pair of ball bearing-type turbochargers to the combustion chambers. High-flow GM Racing fuel injectors are used to match the airflow and a GM prototype camshaft actuates the valves – the camshaft is a high-performance item that may just reach production sooner than later.

High, prominent mounting of the turbochargers makes them impossible to miss when the Toronado’s hood is raised. They generate airflow that passes through a pair of intercoolers (mounted behind the radiator) and through a pair of GM mass air meters, where the pressurized air supply merges and enters the engine through a GM Gen IV V-8 90-mm electronically-controlled throttle body and composite intake manifold. A custom exhaust system was fabricated from scratch-built, stainless steel headers and is routed through a custom-fabricated stainless steel exhaust system.

In keeping with the car’s high-tech nature, as well as leveraging the C5’s unique chassis layout, the Toronado’s engine is connected to a beefed-up Hydra-Matic 4L60-E four-speed automatic via the Corvette’s unique rear transaxle. The transmission actually is attached to the rear axle rather than the engine; it also was strengthened to handle the 425’s considerable torque. As the C5 chassis was lengthened by 14 inches, the driveshaft and torque tube that link the engine and transmission required modification. Juchli fabricated a new torque tube section, while a racing-style, 3.5-inch-diameter drivershaft was built by a local specialist.

Because the electronically controlled transmission doesn’t have a traditional speedometer cable, a special converter – similar to those used by many street rodders who adapt late-model, electronically controlled transmissions to their vintage cars – is used so the Toronado’s unique drum-style speedometer operates accurately.

There’s another advantage to using the Corvette transaxle: it creates better front-to-rear weight balance. The original Toronado’s heavy front engine/transaxle combination placed a large mass over the front wheels, rather than spreading it along the driveline and out to a rear axle.

Basic black

From the ground up, Lear customized the entire interior. Like the bodywork, the Toronado’s all-black interior is mostly stock in appearance, right down to its steering column-mounted automatic shifter. The car originally was equipped with a front bench seat, but it was removed to make room for a driveline tunnel required to make room for the chassis’ torque tube. A pair of leather-covered seats was crafted to mimic the design of available bucket seats. The rear seat also was re-covered in leather and modified slightly to accommodate the driveline tunnel.

A center console was crafted to fit between the bucket seats. It is styled to appear vintage factory-original and serves to cover the driveline tunnel. The dashboard is original, although a couple of instruments have been added to more accurately monitor the turbocharged engine’s operation.

Even the Toronado’s trunk was revamped. In it, a custom fuel cell is fitted, as is a pair of high-volume electric fuel pump, a single 12-volt battery and a custom air conditioning system designed by Vintage Air. And though it sounds full, the expansive, original trunk swallows these necessities with room to spare.

“As a package, this Toronado has it all – classic styling and the new technology of modern automobiles,” Leno said. “What this car really needs is a road trip in Europe to demonstrate what an American GT can really do.”

GM Accessories and GM Performance Parts are sold by Chevrolet, Buick, Pontiac, Cadillac, GMC and HUMMER dealerships. For more information visit www.goodwrench.com.

General Motors (NYSE: GM), the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer, designs, builds, and markets cars and trucks worldwide, and has been the global automotive sales leader since 1931. More information on GM can be found at www.gm.com.

Engine specifications:

GMPP Prototype 425 ci Engine

Horsepower: 1070 @ 6350 rpm
Torque : 1000 lb-ft @ 4750 rpm
Max RPM Recommended: 7000 rpm
Compression Ratio: 8.3:1
Block: prototype/racing Gen IV block
Bore: 4.110”
Stroke: 4.000”
Crankshaft: prototype forged 4.000” stroke Gen III/IV crankshaft
Connecting Rods: 6.125” forged connecting rods
Pistons: forged pistons
Piston Rings: Full stainless steel barrel type 1.2-mm top ring, reverse twist cast taper cut 1.5-mm second ring, 3-mm standard tension chrome face oil control ring
Camshaft: prototype hydraulic roller Gen III/IV camshaft
Lifters: production Gen III/IV hydraulic roller lifters
Cylinder Heads: prototype/racing
Intake Valves: 56 mm
Exhaust Valves: 41 mm
Valve Springs: custom double valve springs
Spring Retainers: titanium
Rocker Arms: prototype/racing Gen IV rocker arms
Push Rods: prototype/racing
Intake Manifold: prototype/racing Gen IV intake manifold
Carburetor: NA
Rear Main Seal: production Gen III rear main seal
Windage Tray: production Gen III LS6 C5 Corvette
Damper: production Gen III LS6 C5 Corvette
Distributor: NA (production GM Gen III V-8 ignition coils)
Ignition Timing: 2004 C5 Corvette PCM controlled
Spark Plugs: 2005 C6 Corvette production spark plugs
Fuel: 93 octane / C16 for 1070 hp

By JACK SMITH

IT’S outrageous, Herb Chambers conceded, to pay $1 million for a McLaren F1 sports car. ”It makes no economic sense at all,” said Mr. Chambers, who lives on a sprawling estate in Old Lyme, Conn., equipped with a helicopter and a helipad.

As for the McLaren’s center-mounted driver’s seat, it’s totally impractical. ”It feels just like a Formula One race car,” Mr. Chambers said. ”It makes getting a ticket from a toll booth a real adventure.”

And nobody really needs a car with 600-plus horsepower and a top speed of 230 miles an hour. ”I have to send it to Montvale, N.J., to have it serviced,” he said. ”It costs $500 to rent a runway at the local airport to road-test it.” As he said this, he glanced at the car’s instrument panel to make sure the oil and water had warmed.

”Are you in?” he asked his passenger, who was struggling with the door of the F1, which slams down like a guillotine.

Hatches and latches secured, Mr. Chambers nudged the shift lever into first gear and gently engaged the clutch as the silvery, wedge-shaped supercar rolled slowly onto a country road and toward a highway. Once the car was on the entry ramp, the genteel tappa-tappa of camshafts and valves suddenly became a high-pitched, metallic scream as the McLaren accelerated onto Interstate 95, pinning its driver and passenger to their seats. The landscape was a blur.

”There’s really no way to justify it in ordinary terms,” Mr. Chambers yelled above the cacophony about the car. ”That’s the beauty of it.”

Or, to some, the horror. Although there are cars — a vintage Bugatti or a Delahaye, say — that cost $1 million or more because they are rare or they have a certain provenance, the McLaren’s appeal is more visceral. It is built to do one thing: scream down the road as fast as is humanly, or mechanically, possible.

So, too, are other $1 million-plus rare birds like the Porsche 959, Ferrari 288 GTO and Ferrari F40, though its value has dropped to a third of that amount since 1990.

Soon to come, if not already plying American roads, are street-legal versions of the Porsche GT1, the Mercedes CLK-LM, the Nissan R390 and the American-made Panoz GT-R1, each sleeker, sexier and scarier than anything ever built for the masses.

One reason car makers sell barely domesticated versions of all-out race cars (yes, the McLaren F1 began as a road car, but it also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1995) is the ”homologation” rules of racing: to compete in the GT1 class, a minimum number of cars must be sold to the public.

For the last few years, that minimum has been one, but given the economies of scale, if you’re going to build one for the street, why not build a couple dozen?

Though Madison Avenue hypes sex appeal and power in the most garden-variety conveyances, mainstream auto manufacturers are reluctant to admit that the most exhilarating and testosteronic cars of all even exist. With good reason, said Dick Fritz, who managed Ferrari’s racing team in the 70’s. ”European car makers are leery of American litigiousness,” he explained. ”If something happened, it would be easy to convince a jury that cars like these shouldn’t be on the road.”

The majority would not be if it weren’t for Mr. Fritz’s company, Ameritech, which specializes in making race-bred road rockets comply with Federal safety and environmental regulations. That means more than adding license plates. Mr. Fritz designs and installs American-mandated catalytic converters, evaporative emissions controls, on-board engine diagnostic systems, passive restraints (air bags), impact bumpers, side impact reinforcements, headlights, center-mounted stop lights and ”various warning buzzers and lights.” This road prep may cost $100,000 or more.

WHICH raises the question, Who buys these cars?

”Typically, these are dynamic, high-powered guys in their 40’s and 50’s,” said Mr. Fritz, whose clients include Ralph Lauren, Clint Eastwood and David Letterman. ”They’re not old money. Most of them have started their own businesses and they have a lot of toys: airplanes, racing boats.

”Most of them are good drivers, but,” he said with a wince, ‘’some aren’t. Frankly, it’s scary to think of a McLaren or F40 in the hands of a bad driver.”

Fortunately, he noted, it generally takes more than money to acquire a supercar. ”The factories don’t want one of these cars to wind up in the hands of somebody irresponsible,” Mr. Fritz said. ”It’s usually by invitation.”

Herb Chambers was in Biarritz, France, when he got his. ”The McLaren factory told me to charter a plane and fly to England to look at the car,” he said. ”If I bought the car, they’d pay for the plane. That sounded fair. I wanted to see if it was really a $1 million car.”

His skepticism was well founded; in the late 80’s, rich car buffs were paying $1 million or more for the Ferrari F40 on the presumption that it was worth that much because somebody else would eventually pay more. But during the recession of 1991, the Ferrari frenzy cooled and prices fell to a level of $300,000 to $350,000, where they remain.

Mr. Chambers fits Mr. Fritz’s portrait of a typical client. The 56-year-old Boston-born entrepreneur never went to college, but joined the Navy, hoping to become a fighter pilot. (He admits to having a hankering for speed.) When he got out, he used $1,000 to start a copy-machine repair service; when he sold A-Copy in 1983, it was the largest copy-machine sales and service company in the United States.

Into the void came cars. ”I decided I always loved cars, so why not buy a dealership?” he said. ”I bought my first in 1985. Now I own 13 locations with 23 franchises in three states. I love the business. You can really feel something for a car; it’s hard to get excited over a copy machine.”

Mr. Chambers had already owned a succession of Ferraris and Rolls-Royces. Nonetheless, he had never seen anything like the McLaren. ”I fell in love with it the moment I saw it,” Mr. Chambers acknowledged as the F1 rolled up to his helicopter and stopped.

”It was simply spectacular, but there was nothing gaudy about it,” he exulted. ”Everything is done to enhance performance, with no thought to cost. For instance, most car makers won’t cut weight by 10 percent if it costs them 200 percent more to do it. But McLaren does.”

THE weight-saving strategies include a body sculptured from carbon fiber, a featherweight tool kit with pieces cut from gold-plated titanium and a miniature battery. Together, they produce a car weighing 2,840 pounds, nearly 400 pounds less than a Corvette.

As for power, it is immediate, with no turbo lag. This is because the McLaren eschews turbo charging; instead, the 6.1 liter V12 incorporates 48 valves and 4 camshafts to produce 627 horsepower — some 280 horsepower more than the Corvette’s — and 550-foot-pounds of torque.

The F1 remains on the ground at high speeds because of aerodynamics: the body is shaped like an inverted airfoil, with 6-inch diameter fans sucking air from beneath the car and shooting it out the back to enhance the vacuum effect.

The McLaren people took Mr. Chambers for a ride on a test track. ”When it was over, I stepped out and I was sweating profusely,” he said. ”It was the most exciting ride of my life.”

He went home with the McLaren and has never regretted it. ”There are some things in life you buy, and then you ask yourself, Why did I ever do that? I bought a Lamborghini Countach once, and two days later, I didn’t know why I bought it. It had all these wings sticking out of it. But this, I don’t even have to drive it to enjoy it. I can just stand there and look at it.”

Yet the car is hardly devoid of amenities. ”Look,” Mr. Chambers said, opening a panel between the door and the rear-wheel well. ”Each car comes with its own matching luggage with the serial number on it. They also give you a Tag Heuer watch with the car’s serial number on it.

”A watch,” he repeated — and laughed.

Jack Smith is connoisseur at large for The Robb Report, a monthly magazine.