A lot of years ago
I had a little Escort EXP two-seater that I wound a little tighter than it had been from Ford; I holesawed out a lot of metal and when i was done I could lift either end of the (Engineless) car by myself. the engine was… not stock, and I had played with the jets a bit, and replaced the stock muffler with a supertrapp, replaced the 4 speed with a 5 speed and changed the final drive a bit. I also did a bunch of little tweaks to the suspension- stiffener bars across the tops of the struts, moved the camber angle a bit, put on some wide grippy tires.
it wasn’t fast, but it was fun. You just about had to use the emergency brake to get the tail to kick out, but you could do it, and when you did, man, it was a hoot. One of my favorite pastimes (Gas was still under a buck a gallon, and a twenty would fill the tank and buy me a couple packs of smokes to boot) was to take it out on the expressway, find a fairly un-busy cloverleaf, and just do the cloverleaf faster and faster until I started to mow the lawn or take out marker signs.
Once or twice the local gendermerie would accost me and attempt to ticket me. Usually I was able to talk my way out of the ticket by acting stupid, at which I excel, some claiming it is hardly an act. “What am I being charged with, officer?”
‘Speeding”
“but there are no speed limit signs on the ramps (I knew that, because I’d plowed them under myself, the previous week) and this car just can’t go that fast! (he’d look at the car, a beat looking Escort with tape holding the rearview mirror in place)
And tell me to stop driving like an idiot and go away.
I bet I did a thousand miles just in cloverleafs that summer. Memreeeez.
I can’t see why people don’t like traffic circles…
Sounds like ‘Medusa’, my ’82 Civic hatch that I stripped and shoehorned a ’79 Accord motor into with cowl induction, Weber carb, and exhaust dumped right behind the front driver’s side tire. That car was quick and ugly, and polarizing in its ability to elicit reactions from passers by. People never didn’t notice the little car. They either smiled and waived or frowned and flipped the bird. It sounded like a cross between a potato bike and a highway mountain cruiser, and had the spirit of an old-school rat-rod. I was fixing $#!+ on that car more often than driving it, but I miss it like heck!
72 C10 with a 350/350 bolted to a Vega 4 speed. No box, just planks. Wouldn’t go over 60 but the sumbitch got there quick.
Roger
LOL, ah.. FUN times!
’57 Bel Aire, glass front, 301 injected, B&M Hydro, engine set back 6″, gutted interior down to two front buckets.
With wrinkle tires it would carry the front across the intersection.
This was in ’62 on a GI’s pay and some help from Dad.
Only street race I ever lost was to a Shelby Cobra. [RIP]
Not a a Shelby! A Chevy 409, pardon.
My old ’80 Pontiac Sunbird (this was when it was a hoopty, before they made it bigger and sportier), I could pass cops going 90 and not get followed. I guess they saw it and figured their radar was acting up again – it couldn’t go that fast. Then I burned the engine up and got a Beretta, and couldn’t sneeze without getting a ticket.
My first car was an ’85 Escort L that couldn’t get out of its own way, if that car ever hit 75 mph it was because it just fell off a cliff. My next car was an ’89 Mustang 5.0 that I bought brand new and still drive, THAT car has balls. I had it about 2 weeks when I dusted a 300Z Turbo that pulled up next to me and gunned the engine, when the light turned green I floored it and off I went, he popped his clutch and turned his rear tires to smoke and noise while I used mine to make acceleration. Hint Mr 300Z Turbo: smoke means the tires and turning and the car ain’t moving forward.
Not quite as flamboyant as yours, I remember a trick we used to do, when I drove a cab. There was this place in the bottoms of Cincinnati’s riverfront where railroad tracks — originally run to service freight warehouses on the water — were set in the pavement. A lot of them. A profusion of spurs and switches, all curvy and like snakes mating in a hot den.
They were old and worn smooth by all the traffic — steel-tired and rubber-tired as well.
The light on Second at Central was one of those continuous right turn things. Always green. You didn’t have to stop.
If you got your speed right on Second Street and were turning up Central, you could actually get your car’s back-end to slide sideways all the way across Central Avenue on those rails in the pavement — smooth like buttah — effecting a four-lane change in the turn which we called the Second and Central Fade.
M