These days most of my driving is within 3 dB of the speed limit and I haven’t taken a wrench to my car in years (as it should be), but when other kids were clipping baseball cards to their bikes to make motor noises with the spokes I was welding repurposed lawnmower motors onto bikes...
My ‘54 Ford Coupe had a slightly shorter roofline than a sedan... a few hundred pounds lighter too. The lighter tail with open rear made for spectacular burn-outs... used to buy my rear tires in a junk yard. Half life for the right rear was about 2 weeks... don’t ask about the broken windows acquired at a bar in NY state.
The motor was a 272 ci “Y” block V-8 bored out to 281 ci. Full race Isky camshaft, 4 barrel Holley carb, Mallory dual point distributor, cast iron headers, dual exhaust. I had the distributor hooked up to the choke cable so I could retard the timing enough to get it started...
Took it to the drags once but couldn’t race it because I didn’t have a scatter shield... and they just laughed when I tried to convince them it was stock.. I think the loping idle gave me away...
I owned a Black 1986 Mustang GT, an “Arrest Me” Red 1993 Mustang Cobra, and I’m currently driving a “Don’t Arrest Me” Green 1997 Mustang Cobra.
Disregard the Yamaha RD400 motorcycle under the quilt... this is supposed to be about cars. The RD sounded more like a vespa than a hog because of the two stroke but it had serious scoot and handled well...
Here's my current ride, going on 28 years old.
Yeah I know, it’s not a car, but I couldn’t drive a car on the street at that age. Couldn’t drive that home brew motor bike “legally” either but the cops would usually just make you walk it home.... kept me amused for a while. In case you’re wondering that front wheel was from a lawnmower and didn’t hang at 25 mph, but it looked cool while it lasted.
The engine on the left was mine. It was cleaner on the inside (like me). I was always more interested in go than show....
Paid $5 for a pit pass to watch some friends race... borrowed a helmet from one of my friends, took off the hubcaps and air cleaner. Won H/Stock automatic because all the serious racers were running bracket races. You'll notice I turned a better time and would have won the the next higher class too. I found out later I could have taken $25 instead of the trophy, but it is the tallest one on my mantle. "Fireball" was a nickname
I don’t have an actual photo of my red rocket. I t-boned it in the Mississippi rain driving home from work one evening. Hydroplaned on some runoff from the downpour and was vectored off the interstate... got it straightened out and almost fully back up onto the road surface before hitting a guard rail head on... since it was a limited edition vehicle the insurance company couldn’t find one for sale to get a comparable valuation.
I was still dialing in the Vortech blower. I ran it up to 135 mph one time before I installed the special ignition system that retards the timing based on amount of boost. It was still pulling like a mule at speed, but I backed off to save my pistons. Never got to try again with the ignition sorted, it was totaled with only 22k miles on it.... RIP.