Ah, Those Were The Days

Ah, those were the days.

My first car was not a normal car.

It was a 1970 Chrysler New Yorker with a 440 Magnum TNT police interceptor pursuit engine that put out 418 horsepower and more than 500 pound feet of torque. It had a passing gear at 95, no shit. The carburetor would open up and the sound of a tingling bell could be heard inside the car. No fuel injection for me, back then.

When all my friends were buying Corvettes, Mustangs, Camaros, and Olds 442's, I had my sedate, four door black sedan with the gold vinyl roof. Yeah, it looked a bit like a Mafia car, especially when driving it slow around the old neighborhood at dusk.

I bought it used with 11,000 miles on it for $3,000, a lot of money to me back then in 1972. Okay, there was an unexplained big blood stain on the dashboard that the salesman ignored, but I didn't ask any questions. It was a good deal. What can you buy today for $3,000? Motorcycles cost more. Gees, the Temper-Pedic mattress that I just bought cost more than one and a half times that.

Those were the days of cheap gasoline. I remember filling up my 26 1/2 gallon tank for less than ten bucks and I didn't have to get out of the car to pump my own gas.

"That will be $9.75."

"Did you check my oil?"

"Yeah, you're full."

"Did you clean my windshield?"

"I did when while you were talking to your friends."

"Did you put air in all four tires?"

"I did as you asked."

"Great. Thanks a lot." I handed him a ten. "Keep the change," I said as I pulled out of the gas station.

"Hey, thanks a lot. Now, I can afford to put my kids through college, you cheap bastard," he yelled after me as I drove off.

People always thought that I had money when they saw my big car. If they only knew that I had to take a collection to buy gas from my friends.

After my friends tired of driving their two door cars, they would hop in my car and we'd go for a ride. My car was so big that I could fit 5 skinny teenagers comfortably in the back seat. It was a great car for the drive-in movies because the trunk was big enough to fit three of my friends and we didn't have to pay the full admission price.

The only cars that were bigger than my car were the Chrysler Imperial, Lincoln Continental, and the Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham.

So, why was my car so special? It was just a big boat, after all, like all the other dinosaurs that traveled the highways back then, Chevrolet Caprice, Ford Galaxies, Mercury Marauders, Pontiac Bonnevilles, and Oldsmobile 88's and 98's. It was fast. It was sleeper fast.

I used to love when someone pulled up beside me in their sports car, a Datsun 240Z or a pony car. I'd nail the gas when the light turned green. They never suspected that my Chrysler would blow their doors off. They never suspected that I had a 440 Magnum in there. All they saw was my tail lights and the dust that I blew up on their windshields.

My friend, Ralph, had a '69 Corvette convertible that his parents bought him for graduating high school. My parents bought me a Timex wristwatch. Anyway, Ralph was always bragging about how fast his car was, and it was. Definitely, it was a chick magnet. He had a different good looking girl with him every time I saw him. And Ralph was not the best looking guy. He was okay, but he looked nothing like yours truly.

We were all going down to Cape Cod one summer. We rented a house in Provincetown for a week. There were 8 of us chipping in to rent this place. Ralph followed me down while I had five of my friends in the New Yorker with all the cases of beer in the trunk.

"Hey, Ralph," I said, "I bet you that I can blow your doors off."

"No way," he said. He had a 350 in his 'Vette and he knew that I had a 440, five friends, and cases of beer.

"I'll bet you a double sawbuck," I said hoping that he would go for it and he did."

"Okay, you're on. When we get to a stretch, where there's no cars, pull along beside me and we can do a mile." I knew he would beat me in the quarter mile, but not in the straight mile.

Finally, the traffic cleared and I booted it and pulled up beside him. Crazy, I know, but we stopped on the highway before nailing it. Quickly, he pulled away a few car lengths ahead. I stomped on the gas. I could feel the engine bolts' struggling against the engine mounts.

At 95mph, I heard the little bell and I knew my four barrel carburetor was wide open. I passed him at 120mph and kept going. Yeah, his car was fast, but it was unable to hold the road like my car did. At speed, his car bounced and rattled over every undulation and rough service in the road. His 'Vette was a handful.

My friends thought that I was doing 80mph and were shocked when they looked over at the speedometer and it was pegged past the 120 mark.

Ralph made excuses, but my 4,400 pound car, loaded down with five friends and beer, blew his doors off.

Ah, those were the days.