It's All Fun & Games Until...

     

   I had a few responses from my past two blog posts about how older generations (boomers and such) supposedly spoiled things for much younger generations. Hey, I'll admit it - some of that history is true as some of the activities, stunts, and general mayhem we engaged in was dangerous. However, as a result, some pretty crucial safety came out of those crazy times. And a lot of it for the better. Mankind, for one reason or another, has always contained an unusual blend of courage and stupidity. The courage always allowed us to blaze ahead in numerous areas ranging from inventions to engineering. Automotive, as well as the parallel sports involving it, are no exception. Take drag racing for instance. 

I was reading an article out of a late 1970 Car Craft magazine about the craziness (literally) that happened that year at the US Nationals. The one race that went down in history, was the Top Fuel final that pitted Don Prudhomme and Jim Nicoll, who were not only rivals but good friends. On live television, Nicoll’s clutch exploded at the finish line, cutting his front-engine dragster in two at his feet. Yikes! Thankfully, Nicoll survived the hair raising incident with only cuts and some bruised ribs. If you ever have a chance to view footage of this race, the term an absolute miracle doesn't even begin to describe how Nicholl survived; it doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. It was also the first time in Prudhomme's long drag racing career, that he very seriously thought about quitting the sport. 

   Clutch explosions, especially in early drag racing, were probably the biggest concern drivers and teams faced. It was an extreme rarity if the rear differential (which was literally at the Top Fuel Drivers crotch) exploded or failed in horrible fashion. Yeah, engines blowing up in a ball of flames while running all that nitro was near the top of the list, but fire suits and other safety equipment had come a long way since the early 60's to help protect drivers from serious burns. When a clutch explodes at high rpm, it's like a huge saw blade from hell and no one can control its trajectory. Many times, the entire assembly, including the flywheel and pressure plate, go into orbit with the clutch. Adding to the madness at the US Nationals, Nicoll's now driverless front half of his dragster eerily slid down the track ahead of Prudhomme’s dragster that he was slowing down in the shutdown area. It was at that moment that Prudhomme was sure his longtime friend had been killed. That's a damn good reason to get out of a sport where the death of your friends (or yourself) along with the psychological carnage is just too much. 

 

Of course, the ever ending quest for speed was not limited to the sport of racing in general. It also found its way onto street driven vehicles, albeit on a limited basis. To begin with, the 1960s were steeped in the rocket age. That decade was also laced with years of incredible change and most people can agree, whether you lived through those years or not, to say that numerous aspects were becoming unhinged, was an understatement. Out of these crazy times was a company based out Florida named Turbonique. If you're unfamiliar with the story of this company and its products, shame on you. Turbonique went down in history for developing perhaps the craziest aftermarket accessory ever developed for the automobile. What made the Turbonique such an outlier? As long as you consider strapping a rocket engine to the back of your car, filling it with a magical mail-order fuel, and then lighting its 1300-horsepower fuse - to be just a tad over the top - you'd be pretty much spot on.

   Granted, turbocharged engines along with turbine powered automobiles were nothing new to the big three automakers in the 50's and 60's. Turbonique wasn't looking to build a turbo or rocket engine nor build an entire car around those concepts. Rather than simply building rocket pods that could be mounted to a vehicle’s fuselage and then presumably piloted by the criminally insane, Turbonique sold its customers on a variety of devices that made the mechanical links between jet tech and traditional automotive power-adders. How did it work? For the most part, each of Turbonique’s various products relied on the use of a micro-turbine that was spun up by the ignition of a fuel mix called “Thermolene.” Thermolene used a chemical catalyst to kick-start a chain reaction that releases enough energy to seriously scare your neighbors and potentially melt your face off. In most Turbonique applications, this fiery enterprise then spun up micro-turbines of various sizes.

   

If that wasn't enough for you, no problem! Turbonique’s main claim to fame was its “drag axles,” which somehow managed to be even crazier. Picture a Thermolene jet turbine attached to the rear axle of a muscle car that could add an astonishing 1300 horsepower on top of what the standard gas engine was sending back. Output was transmitted by way of a one-way clutch while spectacular flames shot out the back. Theoretically, your differential managed to resist similarly exploding with the force of a thousand suns. Despite a price tag of $5000, there were several takers among drivers seeking a competitive edge.

    In another shade of brilliance, control of any Turbonique system relied entirely on cutting fuel
delivery, which meant there was no throttle control whatsoever—just an on/off switch that swung you from “normal” to “ludicrous” speed by way of a spark plug in the ignition chamber that set the Thermolene charge ablaze. This approach was significantly different from traditional turbine designs, which gulped down atmospheric air. While it helped make the micro-turbines remarkably lightweight and efficient, it also contributed to a situation where fuel build-up could create out-of-control explosive conditions inside the system. Whoo-hoo! 

Predictably, things did not end well for Turbonique. While all of the above sounds like a litigation nightmare from a modern perspective, in the ’60s, the legal environment concerning liability was a little more lenient, and as such, it took several years before the various small disasters wrought by mail-order rocketry caught up to them. It started out with the NHRA banning the drag axle from competition, citing a number of incidents that called its safety into question. Next, customers began to complain that the plans they received for their self-assembled rocket engines were substantially more difficult to execute than they had been made to believe, and that locating crucial parts was costing them an arm and a leg. This was all on top of the perils of selling 55-gallon drums of the rocket fuel through the mail. By the end of the decade, Turbonique had been hauled in before the Florida courts on numerous counts of mail fraud. 

As always, have fun but maybe try to play responsibly. Until next time, peace out.

It's All Our Fault, Ya Know Part 2

    I had a number of readers chat with me about the last post, which was basically part one of this series, and were wondering if I had any other ramblings in the same vein. Well, let's try to branch out a bit further this time, while still sticking with mainly the 1960's. The first topic may ruffle some Chevrolet feathers (or piss people off depending on their loyalty factor). But let's look at both sides of the coin.

  On the one side, GM was put in a very tight spot. In early 1956, the U.S. Justice Department of the
Eisenhower administration began thinking about the unthinkable: breaking up General Motors. Stanley Barns, an assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust, saw GM's 50 percent share of the market as a threat to the industry. The largest portion of this market share belonged to Chevrolet. Barns' staff labored for years to prepare an antitrust case against the automaker. Because of this threat, which lasted for more than a decade, is one reason why GM announced their corporate wide racing ban starting in 1963 as well as their engine size mandate in relation to a substantial number of automobiles and their curb weight that lasted until the 1970 model year, amongst other items. One aspect the top brass at GM as well as at Chevrolet did not count on however, was Pontiac. 

   This is the other side of the coin, where some enthusiasts view Chevrolet as a bunch of cry babies. Pontiac, in addition to like minded performance nuts like Jim Wangers, John DeLorean, as well as dealerships like Ace Pontiac in Royal Oak Michigan, always attempted to strive to be different, innovative, and offer the customer an alternative to the GM mold and thinking. For years, Pontiac turned the thumb screws to Chevrolet. First, it was the wide track design that started in the late 50's. Then Pontiac dominated drag racing and the NASCAR circuit up until around the fall of 1962. Then came the GTO in 1964, which continued to be the best selling musclecar until the late '60's. By 1965. Buick and Oldsmobile even got in the performance act with their GS and 4-4-2 models. Chevy didn't get it in gear until the 1966 model year with the 396 cubic inch option on the Chevelle SS. And yeah, Chevy released that same option in 1965, but they only sold 216 units due to a late production start and poor advertising. Getting back to the GTO, in the February 1968 issue of Hot Rod, one observer of the magazine's road test of the completely redesigned musclecar stated, "One of these years, Pontiac will rejoin GM." In lieu of these situations, at numerous times, Chevy acted like a jealous sibling in the GM household. One glaring example was the doomed 1965 Pontiac Banshee. 

   Never heard of it? It was a concept car that arrived on the scene in 1964. Referred to as the "XP-833" within General Motors, the two-seat coupe was slightly smaller than the Corvette in terms of size, with aggressive styling as well as a chassis and drivetrain combo intended to fight off both European sport cars as well as the unforeseen success of the Ford Mustang. Even with a proposed V-8 engine option, it was going to be priced less - substantially less - than the Corvette. The XP-833 was a car that seemed poised to give Pontiac an even stronger identity among the many young voices crying out for attention within GM’s portfolio. With eye-searing looks matched by nothing else on the market and a price tag that would have put it in reach of the average buyer, it could have served as a one-two punch alongside the GTO that drove hordes of customers into Pontiac showrooms and set the tone for the division's future. Instead, the Banshee was stabbed in the back by a jealous Chevrolet, which then unceremoniously stole several of its styling cues to serve as the basis for its own flagship sports car by the 1968 model year. Sorry, Chevy lovers - but facts are facts.  

Moving onto the toy scene, during the early '60's, slot cars were extremely popular in this country. However, during the early years of development, before manufacturers like Aurora, Tyco, Eldon, and Cox got the knack of making them electrical, they used the tried and true model of making them gas powered. Even though Lionel produced the first commercial slot cars as early as 1912, it wasn't until the late 1930s, serious craftsmen/hobbyists were racing relatively large (1:16 to 1:18 scale) model cars, powered by small internal combustion engines, originally with spark-ignition, later with glow plug engines that ran on diesel fuel. By the late '50's when electricity became the prime power source for slot cars, mostly so they could be raced indoors, gas powered model production continued until around 1965. By then, the cars usually ran on a mixture of caster oil and gasoline. And yeah, you could smell the fumes! The slot car and track sets of this type of toy was specified as outdoor use only. However, most enthusiasts believe they were pretty much discontinued due to liability and expense. Note the magazine ad from 1964 where one of it's advertising points was the smell the toys produced! 

 
Another toy I remember as a kid, which while not an official Hot Wheels car, it was produced by Mattel and sold along side Hot Wheels. They were called Hot Shots and were an extremely short-lived series produced from 1972 until 1973. The selling point of the castings was their use of RipFire motors, which were essentially extremely powerful ripcord motors allowing for the castings to wheelie and burnout. The cars, advertised as "Power racers with RipFire motors", were also purportedly able to spark as they burned out. By the way, the sparks were created by pieces of flint that were positioned by the rear wheels and friction from the rip cord started the fun. The artwork on the packages showing the sparks was actually very realistic. Be sure to groove on the small print disclaimer, "Not recommended for children under 3."

Some folks say, "... the good old days weren't always so good." In some cases, however, I sure do miss some of the crazy shit that was offered to the general public. Be it high performance vehicles, toys, or just general kiddo mayhem. 

Until next time, peace out. And maybe live just a tad dangerously...

It's All Our Fault, Ya Know

    My only granddaughter once told me, "Ya know - it's because of your generation (boomers) is why
our generation can't do anything." While I agree that we did some crazy shit back from the 50's through the 70's, whether as kids or adults, we can't be blamed for everything. I gently remind her something to the tune of because of her generation is why we have no sense of history anymore, we scan or scroll, we don't read, and you killed numerous entertainment industries with all your streaming. So there. To be honest, however, being safe whether at work or at play, has evolved in one form or another over the past 100+ years. The work place obviously came first. But I feel at some point in the 80's or 90's is where things really spilled over into the private and home-life sector. It seems nowadays that society seems obsessed with safety - and even the mere hint that a particular product or form of behavior is unsafe causes it to be denounced as immoral. Unfortunately, the very obsession with safety fosters a climate of anxiety that makes people feel more insecure, not less. Which may be the exact points my granddaughter is getting at.

  

Without going down this rabbit hole, regardless of opinion, I still love setting the Full Throttle time machine back to what I consider a golden era of memories and madness - both in a good way. One thing you may remember, even if you are of the early Gen-X crowd, is how many kids Evil Knievel influenced (and not intentionally - he was an entertainer as he called himself) and those kids took to jumping their bicycles using some homemade ramps, usually using Dad's stuff (in some cases saw horses) from the garage along with some beat up sheets of plywood, and bounding over everything from other bikes to kids laying on the ground. I had a neighbor friend who used to attempt this when we were around junior high school age - things came to a crashing halt (no pun intended) when he attempted to jump the family Ford Bronco with his bike. Even though I wasn't present for this fiasco, he ended up damaging his bike and himself pretty thoroughly. His parents were still pissed afterwards for a long time even though he recovered nicely and the Bronco never sustained any damage. As my friend told me several months later, "... not damaging the car; that was the important thing." 

   Moving into the drag racing sector, in the early '60's, Chicago was a hotbed for drag racing - indoor
drag racing that is during the long winter months. Apparently, Chicago was home to the only indoor drag racing event in the country at the International Amphitheater. The concept was simple enough. House the event in an enormous warehouse type building with plenty of lighting. Make sure the building is big enough to have an adequate shut down and turn off area (gotta think of safety here - don't want cool cars smashing into concrete walls). Then finally maybe consider some proper ventilation to deal with all the exhaust emissions. Well, okay, two outta three ain't bad. We're unsure of the exact history of this event that was hosted by racing promoter Bill Schade. The first indoor drag racing event was held on December 30, 1962, which was a huge success. A second racing event took place on January 5, 1964. After that, indoor drag racing just sorta disappeared with zero explanations. 

  

Going back a bit further into the 1950's and hopping across the pond over to England, we delve into the wild but cool hobby of diesel powered slot cars. Apparently, even in England, fumes made things more way more fun. Back in the early years - and we’re talking as far back as the 1930's  - the electric slot cars we played with as kids and know today had yet to be popularized. In their place (in many cases) were scratch built 1/16th scale metal replicas of period race cars powered by smoky little diesel engines, running along a raised central rail. And some of these miniature buggers could scoot up to 60 miles per hour! Now, if you're the slightest bit worried about the hazards of diesel slot cars running at an indoor track, you didn't have to worry about a thing. A set of hairdryers were repurposed to blow away the smog at the beginning the beginning of the race. That’s all you need, right? These slot cars were in essence an outgrowth of the pre-World War II phenomenon of tether cars, which were similar except they were raced around a circular track while being guided by a central tether. Picture something like a kid winging around one of those model planes on a string. That also sounded like good, dangerous fun. 

Until next time, fun fun and play responsibly... or not. Peace out.

Do It Yourself - On Multiple Fronts

    I was reading a vintage automotive magazine this week that featured the theme of DIY - or do it
yourself. The stories were rather entertaining as well as inspiring. One article asked the reader to take a good, long look at oneself as to define the limits of our capabilities. While the author praised and emphasized a do it yourself mentality, he also put forth the concept of getting in over our heads; regardless of what that task was. Because by the time we cross the point of no return, saving money, which is big draw for the DIY aficionado, goes out the window. The articles reminded me of my Dad, who passed about two and a half years ago. While he lost his sight to glaucoma about ten years before he died, I can vividly remember a man who could literally almost build anything himself. This included remodeling or updating a house, (he was a master electrician), woodworking, plumbing, building a motorhome out of an MCI passenger bus, as well as knowing a vintage VW Beetle inside and out. When I was growing up, I knew many relatives and neighbors who could do the DIY thing in regards to almost anything, with their eyes closed. I truly believe that mechanical items were far easier to fix over 50 years ago. 

One aspect that has limited my DIY capabilities when it comes to vehicles, besides the modern technology problem, is my impatience level. Impatience always leads to frustration, which usually leads to anger issues. Another article in this same magazine put me more at ease, however, when the author went into detail about how he yelled at a valve cover that was removed from a 1970 Mustang as he threw it across the street from his driveway and how it unceremoniously landed in a ditch across the street. And it barely missed a landscaping truck when it bounced twice before coming to rest. Okay - I'm not that bad. But it brought to mind another aspect of my hobby of collecting certain vintage automotive and drag racing memorabilia. It seems that people selling their wares on numerous websites from eBay to Facebook as well as others, seem to be more out of touch than any point in history. And that brings about frustrations among collectors. I'm seeing more and more of the following sentences: "Bought these items at an estate sale, don't really know anything about them, unsure if anything works (in regards to some items) and no returns." However, they all seem to know what the full pop price is based on a casual glance from some price guide or what a friend told them. Usually they are informed of something to the tune of "Oh, they're worth a lot of money." No research is ever done. And I'm more than over the acronym of VRHTF - which stands for very rare, hard to find. Be it a vintage car, toy, or piece of memorabilia. That acronym seems to add even more money to the asking price to the uniformed seller.

   Granted, it's your stuff - you can list it or sell it for whatever you want. But as enthusiasts and collectors, we must at least take some of the control back and we must do it ourselves. I can remember a time not that long ago when numerous vintage vehicles were inexpensive to purchase and was a great way for the entry level car nut to get started in the hobby, especially if they wanted to tackle certain repairs or restoration aspects themselves. Nowadays, complete basket cases that can't even qualify as parts cars are selling for thousands of dollars. The mentality is if it's old, it's gold. Getting back to the estate sale & not knowing anything about what some people are offering really seems to resonate with vintage slot cars. Numerous sellers, in addition to having no clue as to how these toys work, they refuse to have any accountability if they don't function properly. They just want top dollar and move on to the next sucker. Take the picture (right) for example - the seller has no idea if any of this set works; but they want almost $1000 for it.

  

Okay - enough bitching. Here's where we have the solution - don't buy into this trap. Have patience and persistence when collecting. Value what you collect. Don't collect for the value. The good deals and bargains are still out there. It may take a while, but they do come. I scored some very impressive deals just yesterday but it's been at least a few months since the last time this happened. I'm okay with that. Too many hobbyists seem to be in a rush to purchase as much as possible in the shortest amount of time like it's some maddening 100-yard dash. We can fool ourselves into thinking that we beat out the next person in getting the item or entertain the thought process of while we paid too much, but the value will increase almost overnight. Clueless sellers and scalpers are counting on this along with a lack of knowledge and the emotional purchase. Stop - just stop. 99% of the time, you'll be better off in the end if you resist the impulse or emotional too high a price purchase. Yes, there are those very rare occasions (there's that term again) that the item truly fits the description and it will be years before you see another one. But it's VERY rare. Use your best judgement before parting with some serious cash. 

Whew - I'm done with today's rant. Yeah, I feel better. Peace out.

Getting Really Weird

   There's a few quips and quotes that I've heard over the years in reference to my glorious, misspent youth; "The
'60's were weird. If you remember them, you were either too young or too old to truly live that era." The second one was, "If you thought the '60's were weird, the '70's were even more strange." I guess it depends on how old you were during those respective decades and what you might call "weird". When chatting with some older family relatives, some mention that the time frame between the late '60's and early '70's were the weirdest of years. Others state that both decades were somewhat unhinged, because societal norms as well as numerous other aspects of life changed so quickly that you needed a detailed score card to keep up. I think it finally depended on what your "norms" actually consisted of. For this post, we're going to define our weirdness quotient to the automotive realm. 

  

The first examples we'll look at when peering under the weirdness microscope, would be the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona (left) and the 1970 Plymouth Superbird (below). Without going into phenomenal detail about either limited production vehicle, their sole purpose was to dominate the race tracks of the NASCAR circuit - period, end of story. While both these vehicles are coveted by collectors today and carry insane price tags for purchasing, they were considered weird or odd by the public back in their day. The interesting part is, the Superbird has always been considered the weirder of the two. But why? This author believes that several factors came into play like production numbers, vehicle cost, novelty, and timing, even though both vehicles completely changed the course of racing history.

   When dealing with the Daytona, the production numbers required by NASCAR that a manufacturer had to build in order to qualify said vehicle for racing was 500 units. Depending on where you get your information from, the total number of Daytona's that were built hover around 503 or 505. Some sources say only 392 units were built and in fact, some cars were counted twice. In any case, the novelty of the vehicle was incredible. 

   Numerous performance car enthusiasts had seen off-the-wall show cars before, like Bill Cushenberry's Silhouette (below) or the made for

TV Monkey Mobile created by Dean Jeffries, but to have a domestic manufacturer build a car of the Daytona's nature and sell them to the public, was unheard of. The Superbird, on the other hand, for some reason, was a different story. NASCAR rules literally changed every year, especially when the winged wonders were being built. The revolving changes involved production numbers as well as safety and fairness concerns. Plymouth had to build almost 2,000 units in order to qualify the car for racing (two cars for every US dealership). The MSRP of the special bird started at over $700 more than the Daytona, which was a good deal of money back then. The insurance companies didn't help matters as they finally tuned into that owning a high-performance car was a greater risk, in both driving and theft. Regardless of the extra monetary problems, the novelty of the cars was wearing off in the public eye and many Superbirds sat unsold. Numerous dealerships converted the Superbird's back to regular Roadrunners or took huge sales losses just to get rid of inventory. To quote numerous dealership owners, "...the car was just too weird looking and too expensive."

   Speaking of show cars, one has to agree that concepts and vehicles took a totally left of center turn at the dawn of the '70's. While numerous show cars were considered futuristic back in the '60's, things got downright abnormal by 1970. Maybe people were running out of ideas - who knows. One of the weirdest show rods of all time, which is still in existence today, is the Bathtub Buggy. In an extreme exercise of dropping too many hits of LSD while designing it, the show car was initially built starting in 1968, but it didn't really hit the show circuit until the 1970 season. As the name suggests, the Bathtub Buggy is a hot rod that has twin bathtubs for passenger seats and, yes, a plush toilet throne for the driver’s seat. All porcelain surfaces are covered in velvet-like fabric in a very dated but still pretty cool yellow-ish  mustard, (depending on the light hits it), which matches the gold copper of all that extra “plumbing” perfectly. This show rod spawned other creations that followed like the Outhouse, but shortly afterwards, designs really calmed down in concept. Perhaps the acid was wearing off and everyone had a headache...

  

In the toy realm back then, weirdness wandered and followed into that industry like a little puppy. In my never ending quest to collect Hot Wheels toy cars, a new series from Mattel debuted in 1971 called Farbs. They were goofy as all get out, and in one case, a little politically incorrect by today's standards. Initially, there were four racing dudes, all with catchy names, that were part human, part hot rod. They all had engines attached to their bodies, had slightly silly faces, and one in particular called Miles Ahead, had the fuel tank sticking out his butt. It was actually between his legs, but us kids thought it was funnier the other way around. But hey - this was 1971 and it was hilarious. No harm ever came to a kid who purchased one. 

   Finally, we take a look at a toy model kit that actually had the term Weird-Oh in it's name. A very well known, extremely colorful, and eccentric artist and car designer named "Big Daddy" Ed Roth truly inspired these initial characters. The Hawk model company took it from there and specifically called them "car-icky-tures". Ed Roth became famous from building show cars of various themes, to creating the immortal Rat Fink character, as well as being the originator of the popular weirdo t-shirts and sweatshirts throughout the '60's, amongst other ventures. Unfortunately, he never trademarked or patented his designs and several companies took substantial liberties with very similar art work. One series that was hatched in 1964 was the Weird-Oh's model series that featured such off-the-wall characters as the Drag Hag, Digger, and Endsville Eddie. Hawk also released a glow-in-the-dark series of these same model kits by the late 60's. I was just starting to get into model kits of sorts by 1970 at the tender age of seven, although that phase didn't last very long. But one Weird-Oh model kit I wanted was "Davey; the Way Out Cyclist" - mainly because we shared the same name and I thought it was cool looking. He was a deranged looking monster on what looked like a Harley Davidson motorcycle. 

   My Mom said no and I kinda forgot about it after the initial bummer reaction wore off. She later told me that she thought the model kit would be a bad influence on me at some future point in my life. She tried, but the bad influences still crept in - like extremely fast muscle cars and hot rods as well as a bunch of other crazy shit. It still hasn't left my system yet. Oh well... and sorry Mom. 

Until next time, peace out. And it's more than okay to be weird.

How Rare is Rare... Really?

   When it comes to almost anything, be it an automobile, book, coin, or what have you, the terms of vintage and rare are thrown around more than baseball during a Red Sox game. Go onto eBay and you'll see almost any item that is at least 20 years old, is labeled as vintage. I will be the first to admit, along with countless others, that this is not vintage. Hit me with something from the mid-70's, and depending on what it is, starts to qualify as vintage. And no, your 25-inch Zenith color TV in it's ugly wooden console on wheels from the mid-70's does not count. 

   However, certain items in our classic and high performance world do indeed qualify as vintage but also definitely rare. One item that comes to mind was a 1970 Plymouth Roadrunner I owned for about 2 1/2 years back in the mid 80's. It was a basic hardtop model - nothing really special. It was also before the aftermarket restoration industry exploded catering to muscle cars ranging from 1964 to 1974. Back then, the only aftermarket parts were for Corvettes. In order to find parts, you either had to scour swap meets, car shows, or if you got really lucky, found something you could use of the same era car in a junkyard. Once the aftermarket parts industry with companies like Year One caught up with enthusiasts, all those junkyard classics were crushed for scrap metal money. I purchased the Roadrunner in its purple glory (not the original color) that had a modified 440 Magnum engine between the fenders (not the original engine either; the 383 cubic inch V-8 was long gone). The guy I purchased the bird from was going through a divorce and included in the selling price of $2500 a 426 Hemi engine from 1970. My wife was a little miffed - she knew about the Plymouth coming home, but nothing about a spare engine that had to be stored in the basement. Rarity be damned. 

   In the weeks to come, I had a good friend of mine who worked at a local service station haul the Hemi engine out of the basement, and I left my Roadrunner with him for a few weeks for him to pick away at an engine swap. I told him he could keep the 440 magnum (which ran like a Swiss watch) as payment for his work. Once the swap was finished, which took a little more work than either of us anticipated, the car was an absolute animal on the street. The Hemi had hydraulic lifters by 1970, instead of the solid lifters of years past, so now the engine pulled hard all the time - no constant tuning and valve lash adjustments. I ended up selling the vehicle for a down payment on our first house. My wife was good with the sale, because the car was a handful to drive, was horrible on gas, and was never driven in the winter. Never mind she wouldn't drive it. While I never considered the Roadrunner itself a rare car (it was 1 of 20,000+ built that year), Chrysler only built a few hundred Hemi engines that year as factory high performance was on its way out.

  

However, speaking of REALLY rare, I stumbled across a magazine article from October 1966 where the staff was able to test drive - if you could honestly do that with this prototype vehicle - a 1967 Ford Galaxie with a "streetable" 427 SOHC (single overhead cam) engine. The race version of the SOHC engine that Ford developed in order to compete with the Chrysler Hemi on the drag strip and NASCAR race tracks, was an incredible engine that developed over 600 horsepower right out of the gate and could rev easily to 7,000 rpm. The supposedly streetable version of the SOHC engine had smaller dual quad Holley carburetors as well as a milder camshaft. Aside from the way beefier suspension, higher speed rated tires, and the almost competition four speed transmission, it looked like a stock Galaxie - right down to the hubcaps. However, the vehicle was never put into production due to cost (the engine was a $1000 option on top of the optional Galaxie 500 trim level) as well as driveablity issues like lousy low-end torque, hard starting in colder weather, and abysmal gas mileage. The only bright side to this insane rarity aside from the massive engine under the hood, was once  that power plant revved over 4,000 rpm, the car was literally untouchable and unbeatable on the street. 

   I owe the last rarity, that I still own, to my dad and him being kinda a stickler for reality. He knew I loved Hot Wheels as a kid and that I had a real yen for hot rods. So, for my birthday, he went searching for the classic '31 Ford Woody. Of course, the toy car came in all sorts of colors ranging from red to blue to purple to green. But to my dad, this didn't make any sense. It was a Ford Woody - wood is brown. Not red or purple or whatever. He managed to find one and I managed to preserve it all these years. It's not in perfect shape as it was played with - after all, it was a toy. However, it didn't see as much play time as my other models because it was not only tall, but boxy in shape. It didn't work as well with some of my Hot Wheels accessories mainly because it was so top heavy and awkward. Turns out, this particular Hot Wheel is one of the rarest that Mattel ever made. I have no idea why, but it is what it is. Google it and be prepared to get your mind blown as to its value. I did years ago looking through a price guide and that was way before Google was even thought of. Today, it's even more scary... and no, it's not for sale.

Until nest time, be that cool, rare person. Peace out.

When & How Did You Get Started In All This Vintage Automotive Madness?

   The short answer is, many moons ago. If I had to nail down a year, I'd definitely say it was 1968. I
was going on six years of age when I received my first batch of Hot Wheels toy cars which made their debut that same year. I had collected a few Matchbox cars prior to that, but they didn't roll very well and half the time I had to ask either my dad or grandfather exactly what the model was as most of them were based on foreign vehicles. When I first laid eyes on those cool Hot Wheels with their spectra-flame colors and hot rod attitude, that's all I wanted. I've been collecting them ever since. Of course, the success Mattel experienced from those initial 16 toy cars sparked a revolution and spawned more advertising on Saturday morning cartoons than you could shake a stick at. That led me to purchase more Hot Wheels and the associated track and accessories. By 1971, I had a LOT of Hot Wheels stuff; everything from a lunch box to miles of orange track to the almost 3 foot tall Tune-Up Tower. If anyone in my family asked my mom what I wanted for Christmas, my birthday, for Easter - the answer was Hot Wheels. The above picture is my older sister and I back in 1970. My mom had a cardinal rule of sorts, where I was only allowed to bring down so much Hot Wheels stuff from my room to play with at one time. She knew that everything I owned could take over the entire study / TV room in our house, as evidenced by the fact my bedroom was loaded with it. 

  

As time went on, those Hot Wheels branched out to other things. The only sport I was into was drag racing. I used to fall asleep watching the football or baseball games my dad or grandfather used to watch. Basketball was a little better, but my mom wouldn't let me watch hockey - too violent. I also thought NASCAR racing was kinda cool, but it took too long. A drag race was the only sport where you had one shot to win. No innings, quarters, periods, halves, rounds, sets, frames, or what have you. If you lost the race, you went home. Before we moved from northern New Jersey to live in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire in 1974, my neighbor, who was an avid drag racer, took me a few times to Englishtown Raceway which was a racing mecca in its day. He was gracious enough to snap some pictures of some of the race cars, and I still have those faded color photos today. That mostly cemented my love for 60's and early 70's muscle cars. By 1972, I started collecting AHRA drag racing trading cars made by the Canadian company Fleer. I still have those today and still collect those as well. 

   Fast forward a few more years when performance took a real hit, but there were still a few diehards in my family who had the same bug I did. My older cousin, who lived near Chicago, owned a 70 Roadrunner with lots of power and attitude. And yeah - lots of cars had that serious rake; totally inspired by drag racing. When I was 16, I purchased my first car, a Mustang, from a neighbor. The vehicle never saw a New England winter as they went to Florida every October. The saving grace was the fact it had a 302 cubic inch engine, even if it was graced by Ford with only a 2-barrel carburetor. My dad was a little miffed that I didn't get something foreign or front wheel drive, but he knew it was still a good car. With the help of a fellow speed freak at a local garage, the engine soon had a performance intake manifold, 4-barrel carb, a set of headers with dual exhaust and a pretty healthy camshaft tackling the valvetrain. I never drove it winter, which still worked out okay, as I had a very good friend who had a 4-wheel drive pickup. The arrangement we had was we would drive my car from the beginning of May until about the first on November, then drive his rig all winter. Having this modified Mustang led me to start collecting Hot Rod, Car Craft, and Popular Hot Rodding magazines from the mid 50's through the early 70's. Each was loaded with performance tech articles regarding my era Mustang, never mind the coolness factor from a by-gone era.

  

I took a hiatus from performance cars when I went off to college. Girls were now a major concern as was my love for music and radio broadcasting, which was my major in college. My dad wouldn't allow me to take the Mustang to college as he felt it would get stolen. He said he would store the car for me like I did for several years. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, his game plan didn't work out. He thought he would have a friend or neighbor store it somewhere for free as he didn't want to pay anything for storage like I had done. So the Mustang sat - outdoors - totally unprotected. One winter while I was away at college was especially cold and brutal. When I came back home in mid-May, the car had taken a real beating. All the tires were flat, I had to replace the battery, along with the distributor cap, rotor, as well as the spark plugs and wires. My gear-head friend from the local garage helped me get it started. It took us over 2 hours to get it running. Needless to say, with my 19-year old attitude, I was pissed. While I drove the car all summer, I just couldn't bring myself to let it sit like that for another winter, despite family promises. I sold the car to my gear-head buddy. 

 

   It wasn't until I was married in the mid-80's, that muscle cars started making a comeback. The restoration parts aftermarket definitely helped that along. At that same time, I had a little bambino on the way, and my mom informed me that she had saved all of my Hot Wheels stuff, my Fleer trading cards, as well as all my magazines. Maybe I could share my passion with our child. To my benefit, my parents owned and ran a large antique shop. My mom saw that all these things I collected were escalating in value, so in her fore-thinking wisdom, (and unbeknownst to my dad), she collected more of these things. My wife was a little surprised with all this "stuff" that had now taken up residence in our study and TV room, just like when I was a kid. 

   I still have most of these things - I made a mistake once and vowed to never do it again. Money was tight during the recession going into the early 90's and I put all my Hot Wheels track and accessories out in a huge box as part of our annual yard sale. A guy and his wife approached me and asked how much I wanted for the entire box. Being a tad hesitant to sell, I shot out, what I thought was a high figure of $250 dollars. He didn't even bat an eyelash and agreed to it. He pulled out his wallet and handed me the money. My wife was stunned at the amount. He asked if I had any Hot Wheels cars for sale and my wife, thinking we could really rake in some cash told him, "Oh yeah, he has tons of them inside! He has all kinds of old drag racing stuff too!!" I told him that the box was all I was selling and that I already had sellers remorse. Yes, I'm still married to that same woman today but she tolerates my hobbies MUCH better... and doesn't offer to sell my stuff for me.

Until next time, remember; don't collect for the value. Value what you collect. 

Peace out.