What car got you into Mopars?
Those of you ho have read the story know this, but for the rest its all the fault of one of the valets at the building where I was living at the time.
His name was Jimmy, he had dark hair and big glasses and a Cheshire cat grin, he had a 1970 yellow Plymouth Duster with the black stripe package. It had a 340 in it that had been built to the hilt, and according to Jimmy it had belonged to an aircraft mechanic that had been drafted and sent to Vietnam. Even in my ignorance I could tell this was not your ordinary car, and was probably the reason for the grin. Jimmy spent every Saturday morning adjusting the rocker arms to make sure the solid tappets were just right. The thing Idled with such a violent lope that the antenna would rock back and forth like a conductor leading an orchestra. Once we met, we all hung out together and went for many rides in his Duster. The Duster was his daily driver, now this was not a problem in town because at that time we could buy Amaco 101 at many locations for about forty cents a gallon. But it had a 4.10 posi in the rear so he could not take it on long highway jaunts. We tried this, and every fifteen minutes or so he would have to pull over and let it cool off. For road trips we used Larry’s bug but for in town there was nothing like that duster.
One day with Jimmy driving and me in the car, we were going south on Biscayne Blvd., for what reason I can not remember, we had just stopped at a light. Next to us in a large brown boat, a Buick maybe, an old man shouted out to us “Hey it sounds like that thing needs a tune up”. You see he had to shout because Jimmy had a pair of blown cherry bombs for his mufflers. It was LOUD. Jimmy turned to him and shouted back “Hey old man, you want to race?” The old man gunned his boat and smiled. Jimmy told me to hold on tight and enjoy.
Once the turned green he punched it and pulled a wheelie half way to the next light. We looked back and the old man was still sitting at the light dazed in amazement. It was at that point that I was hooked!
You can read the entire story here:
http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=48363
Andrew