...and if you had a Mopar you crawled under and jacked up the torsion bars. My older sister dated a guy that would come over with his Dads crossram 413 and pull the wheel covers and tighten up the torsion bars and go racing in town.
Oh Yeah,as a young teenager we would pile in my dad's '62 Galaxie and drive about a half mile to a dirt road and pop the hub caps and pull the breather and throw it in the trunk. Ride around the country roads and through the burger joints,every now and then mat the gas peddle to hear that glorious sound of the 4 barrel opening up on that 390 CI engine,,,Gawaah! HRP
Just to add to the hubcap & breather removal,one crisp fall evening as the sun was going down I was driving my dad's car sans breather and hubcaps I was stopped at a street light and obviously earlier in the day a gravel truck had lost some of the load as the truck pulled away from the light. I just happened to be in the loose gravel and as the light changed I took off spinning the tires and my youthful exuberance landed me in trouble with the long arm of the law! Unbeknown to a oblivious teenager I neglected to look in my rear view mirror before showing my arse, Had I looked there was a motorcycle cop directly behind me and he was on the receiving end of a shower of rocks & gravel and within seconds I heard the eerie whine of the siren and the flash of his blinking red light. I slowly pulled over and I could see in the rear view mirror the motorcycle lean over as the officer dismounted the big Harley-Davidson,,all I could think is my dad's gonna kill me. As the big burly cop strolled up the the drives window,he said "Kid,what the hell were you thinking?,didn't you see me behind you?" I said,"No sir",,he said"Get out of the car"...I was scared to death,He grabbed me by my shirt sleeve and waltzed me back to his bike and said "Look at that broken light and cracked windshield,that's what you did." He told me to go home and give my license to my dad and tell him what happened,,and I did what I was told..I wasn't thinking and I forgot to replace the hub caps or air cleaner. It amazes me to this day my dad didn't notice the missing hubcaps but that evening ask me what I did to his car,"It's making a swoosh noise when you give it the gas",this is when I realized the breather was in the trunk along with the hubcaps. Naturally I played dumb,I was already in enough trouble so early Sunday morning I got the spare key from the kitchen and slipped out the back door and replaced the breather & hubcaps. After everyone was up and dressed for church My sister,myself,mom and dad got in the car and dad cranked it up and backed out into the street,when he pulled in the parking lot at Church he looked at me in the rear view mirror and said "Danny,did you notice the car is not making that noise today",I replied "Yes sir"...he turned around and said "Funny,how the car running better make the hubcap magically appear" I knew at that moment my dad was a lot smarter than I gave him credit. Malcolm McClees was the officer and he and I met several times over the years,and it generally cost me money. BTW,The world didn't come to a end with my shenanigans at this event in my life but the ticket was 17.50 and took a lot of grass cutting and chores to pay my dad back. HRP
Yep, I was guilty of the kind of stuff posted above. Dad lectured me about dangerous racing on the street, and abusing the family car. He gave me his well used 64 Comet in 1968 and told me I could do whatever I wanted to with it as long as I paid to keep it repaired, and only raced it at the local strip. I took him up on it all. On an interesting note, Dad (who was a cool dude in his own right) replaced his car with an OT 1968 302ci 4speed Z/28 Camaro with optional 4.56 rear gear ratio. --- Steve ---
The Jalopy Journal
