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Beauty!

Paul Douglass

Paul Douglass

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4,995
Location
S E Washington State
My son was layed over in Boise, Id. the other day. He walked out of the hotel to go to breakfast and the valet had just pulled up in this. My son was kidding because the young man was really nervous about driving the car... My son told him, no pressure take it around the block... Lucky the valet knew my son wasn't the owner.. What a beauty. Always was one of my dream cars.. I did get to own the poor mans version, until I got married, then it somehow became my wife's car..
 

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Never owned or had a chance to drive a Cobra, but did own a couple of Corvettes 'til I got married... she already had a 6 year old and there's no room in a Vette for a child, so being a good husband and daddy, I sold the Vette.
 
Never owned a fast car. I did test drive a couple of fast ones.

I test drove a Ford de Tomaso Pantera back in the day when they were selling for $12K. Man that car fit me like a glove. I think they had to use three men to get me out of it. It was not designed for wide bodies such as myself.

Then I test drove a Mazda RX-2 or 3....I cannot remember. It had a rotary engine in it. I remember going down the ramp to get on I-40 in Greensboro and I was doing 90mph in second gear. That thing was scary fast. I left it sitting in the lot where it belonged.
 
Mike Stafford said:
...I remember going down the ramp to get on I-40 in Greensboro and I was doing 90mph in second gear. That thing was scary fast. I left it sitting in the lot where it belonged.
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A few years after my friend (and shooting mentor) Rick retired from the Albuquerque Police Department, he got a job as the Chief of Police in the small town of Cuba, NM. Instead of providing a police car for him, they had him buy one for himself, which they then leased from him. (Win-win deal for both parties.) This was back in the mid-80s, and Rick became the owner if the first police-equipped Ford Mustang GT in the state. It was white and unmarked, with the lights and siren hidden. It had the high-output 5.0 motor and a 5-speed manual transmission with the tallest gears I've ever seen in a stick shift. One day he let me drive it a bit around town (with him in the passenger seat.) Never did get it on the highway, but I had it up to about 85 MPH on city streets without ever going past 2nd gear.

Rick's daily commute to work was about 80 miles each way, and he averaged 40-50 minutes for the trip. It took a while, but eventually all the State Police officers who patrolled the area got to know him and his car. (He got pulled over a lot when he first started driving the Mustang. He'd show his badge and then be on his way.) He tells the story of one time blowing through a radar trap, and then hearing a state trooper get on the radio and say "Hey Reynolds, you wanna slow it down a bit? You're making us look bad out here!"
 
About that Mazda with the rotary engine; it had a red line of 6500 RPM maybe 7000 , I think. I was just keeping my foot on the gas until it approached the red line. I don't have any idea what the top end was on that car. It was too fast for me. I am a chicken when it comes to speed.

My brother-in-law bought a RX-3 with the twin Wankel rotary engine. He lived in Montana where you could go really fast on certain highways. That engine had a problem of some sort and it blew up. It was covered by warranty so he got a new engine. He drove that car for over 25 years.

Another friend had a Lotus Europa he bought in the early 70's. It was British racing green. I rode in it one time and he took it up to 100 on a four lane highway near his house. I begged him to slow down and let me get out of that thing. Getting in was a lot easier than getting out. With the door open I could drag my knuckles on the ground. I had to roll out of that car and crawl on my knees until I got clear so I could stand up. One funny thing I remember about that car was that it had two gas tanks- one on each side of the car mounted slightly above the engine compartment. He said they were placed there for balance. Of course the engine was mounted behind the seats. It was a two seater with a tall console. He could lay his arm on the console and shift gears without moving his arm because of the short throw on the gear shift.
 
I drove Corvettes from 1965 to 1970/1.... I sold my second one after I got married as there was no place for the wife's daughter to sit.... the first one was a '64 with a Holley AFB carb sitting on the engine... it could pump gas almost as fast as gas pump.... the day I bought it was starting home on the 405 towards Huntington Beach and thought I see what it would do.. I reached 125 mph, I still had accelerator left and the front end was rising.. chickened out and never ran it that high again.... before I bought the 'Vette, I drove a '59 Impala... one of my co-workers lived in Long Beach and we decided it was more economical to swap rides... one day I drove, next day I left my car at his house and he drove... He drove a 289 Plymouth Fury.... one day we hit the 405 and he said watch this... he hit the accelerator and swooped across 4 lanes of traffic and was doing 105 mph... don't remember if was stick shift or automatic but that was last day I rode with him.
After my divorce, since she kept the 280Z, I went looking for a sports car again... I had my 5 yr old son, so a 2 seater wasn't in the cards... wound up with a '76 Alfa Romeo Alfetta... It had 150 on the speedometer and I'm pretty sure it would do most of that... I ran it up to 120 once and chickened out and never went TOO much over the speed limits. You could run up to 70 in 3rd gear and then drop into 4th and punch it a little and the tires would spin. Slam on the brakes and the car would sit down on the road and come to a full stop before the engine would rev down.
I miss those cars but I can't drive that way anymore... too old and slow to react fast enough.
 
Back in the early eighties I owned a Porsche 928S…5 liter V8, top speed of 143 mph. Drove it around Europe for a few years on the fast roads and rarely got passed, but when I did it was by something that made me look like I was standing still. I learned to keep a watchful eye on the rear view mirror.
The most well made/engineered car we’ve ever owned.
 
I used to work for a GM dealer in my younger years. I did all the new car setups and test drives checking for squeaks and rattles. I had a New 73 vet to setup and test drive. I got on the back street heading out of town and nailed it and about that time a concrete truck backed out in front of me and my foot with work boots on got stuck between the break and the console and I couldn't get my foot of the accelerator. If it wasn't for the steering response of the vet I would have hit the truck. I was doing well over 100 when I finely got my foot unstuck. I idled it all the way back to the shop and pulled it in the front door got out and told the service manager that I will never get in one of those things again and I haven't. Nor have I ever wanted too
 
Something similar happened to me while I was driving a 1962 Rambler American two door. It was white just like the one pictured below. The throttle spring which pulled the gas pedal back up broke while I was driving causing the gas pedal to go to the floor.

I think that car got up to 78 mph before I finally got it out of gear and was able to turn off the engine. Fortunately there was tool kit in the trunk and I was able to bend a hook on the broken spring and have control of the gas pedal.

Seventy-eight miles per hour in Rambler was the equivalent of driving a race car at 120. You just don't drive a bread box that fast.

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I did not know one of those could hit 78! My father-in-law was a rambler guy.. one of the many things we disagreed on.. He has a Javelin that he thought was great,, to be fair, he thought as much of it as I did my Sunbean Tiger.. ell he was wrong,, again.
 
Mike Stafford said:
Seventy-eight miles per hour in Rambler was the equivalent of driving a race car at 120. You just don't drive a bread box that fast.

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Do you remember the song about the Rambler that the driver couldn't get out of 2nd gear and was catching up with the Cadillac??
Don't remember all the words myself, but do remember the one line.
 
Mike Stafford said:
This song, Chuck?
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That's the one... didn't know how to find in on line...

I worked for a guy my last year in high school that had a '57 Rambler... he had a fellow that drove for him as he was legally blind due to cataracts... they hauled film and concession supplies for his movie theatres... until they blew the motor or something.... it used more oil than it did gasoline.
when I started driving for him he had upgraded to a '56 Chevy Panel wagon...looked like a station wagon with no windows... we sometimes drove his wife's car, a '56 Bellaire with "factory air"... he used to freeze me out in that one... he was heavy and Texas summers didn't work for him. .. The panel wagon didn't have air conditioning.
 
One of my grandfathers had a '60s Rambler station wagon. He had reworked the R A M B L E R letters on the front grille to read MABLE. He traded it for a Plymouth wagon that had a push button transmission on the dash. I thought that was cooler than all get out.
 
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