When I bought the GTX in ‘82, this is what it looked like. Under hood it was pretty stock with the exception of poorly chromed valve covers and air cleaner lid. It also had a set of yellow Accel plug wires that were all the rage at the time…
My sons,19 and 18 yrs old, would get just as excited by the RWD Toyota Starlet sneaking into the picture on the right. It's a generation thing.
Oh man! There were 3 guys that used to run around town together in my home town in the early 80's in Novas looking just like this when I was a kid. I would see them in a park together or at a gas station together. Like their own Nova club. The ring leader had a bright red one, was a seriously bad dude named Alice. The kind of guy that would punch someone in the mouth for looking at him funny. I never talked to those guys but boy, did I know those cars. Kinda brainwashed me!
One of my favorite pictures I've ever taken: swapping the dead engine in my Firebird for a junkyard-fresh 327 in my parents' driveway. Yes, those are both SBC's. Muncie 4sp, 4.11 posi rear, manual steering and brakes. Fun car. Front tires read "BFGoodrich Belted T/A"
Man,,,,those were the days,,,,,,reminds me of laying under my car swapping out a transmission or a clutch at home . I always did the engine stuff in our old shop,,,but many times I was under it outside,,,sometimes in the snow . Up under the car was the only place without snow,,,,lol . Man,,,,,there’s nothing like being young ! Tommy
Possibly my last post. This thread feels like that time when the NYPD sent out free Yankees tickets to all the people with outstanding arrest warrants…. But here goes, my 1969 Camaro RS/SS I built right out of high school. Even painted it Porsche Red cuz just like Sammy says “Green ain’t mean compared to RED!” One of the few pictures I have of it, at Lake Powell, where I lived from ‘75-‘93. What I really liked about this car was the stance. I used 14x7 Rallys on the front and Corvette 15x8 on the rear. Gave it that perfect ass high look without HiJackers!
Yep! Some not so great though, my second car in high school was a 57 BelAir, it came with a Fenton shifted three speed, couldn't wait to get the T-10 swapped in, just before Thanksgiving I finally got enough money together for the new Hurst shifter and when you're sixteen the ice covered gravel driveway wasn't going to keep it from happening. What I wasn't expecting was how heavy a T-10 is while laying on frozen ground and your back seizes up half way through the stab, took a week and a couple of trips to the chiropractor, had my pal finish the job while I was recuperating. Not me but.........the smile was the same. Then the fun really started!
I don't know why but the whole sidewall of those things would always get that brownish haze not long after they were cleaned.
What a beautiful car! I was in high school when these came out; I wanted one real bad. A little bit older classmate had one, yeah it was fast!
It's got something to do with an oil they use in production. My rear tires are new last summer, the rubber is black and the letters are very white. The fronts are a few years old, the rubber turns brown as do the letters. That leads me to think that they corrected the issue? IDK. I have read on multiple sires that people are tired of buying TAs and have them brown out. I hope they figure it out of they haven't already before I have to run coopers!
If they are smart, they fixed it before they erased a 5 decade run as the coolest muscle car tires on the planet. Nothing cool about Brown tires. They remind me of a day when my dad tasks me with washing his country squire. I washed and waxed it, he looked at my job and before paying me he said “would you go to church in a suit and filthy tennis shoes”? Clean my tires!
Good Year now owns the tire company that made the brown BFG tires, (bought the company at the end of 2021 or 2022). They have probably fixed the problem. My guess was BFG wasn't putting enough carbon black in the tires (carbon black is what makes the tires black, natural rubber is not black).
My 67 Olds. TH 350 swapped in, headers, dual glass packs, in-dash tach and of course an 8-track player! Traded for a 77 T/A in 79 in Indiana. Wish I had the Olds back!
The Jalopy Journal
