Lets hear the car stories.

[Chris142]

Here is mine. In high school I had a friend who's dad had a beautifully restored 62 Impala with a 4speed and 409. His dad would leave very early for work and came home very late. So occasionally we would take the Impala to school or just joy ride in it. One morning he picked me up in it and we went to breakfast. After breakfast we headed to school. A few blocks from school we were stopped at a red light when a new black Iroc Camaro pulled up on our left. We immediately knew who it was. One of the smart mouth Jocks. Next to him was a cheerleader and another jock and cheerleader were in the back. The guy in the back was egging on the driver to race us. So he puts the Iroc in Neutral and does this rev. The 305 was screaming and the exhaust sounded like an air hose as it blew through the pellet style catalytic converter. The girls were exited to race and beat the long hairs in the old Chevy. One even waved like she was waving to us as if they were passing us. My friend smiled at them and put the Impala in 1st gear with a "Clunk". Then the light turned green.... The Iroc Camaro squeaked a tire. At the same time my friend let the clutch out and we were off. About 3/4 the way across the intersection he put his foot into the 409. All 8 barrels opened! The car squatted and the front end got light. All we saw was that long hood. He hit 2nd gear with a bang and both rear hubcaps came off! The 409 was screaming and that big car was wiggling all over the road! By now the Camaro was several car lengths behind us so he slowed down to let them catch up. The Jock would no longer get up next to us. We got stopped at the next light and he had to pull up next to us. I have never seen so many long faces! The girls had a look on them like the world was ending. The one in the back was hitting the jock with her purse! The jock in the back was trying to slide under the drivers seat as to not be seen. They rolled up the window and waited for us to leave that light before they would. Not wanting to be embarrassed again. So at this point we made a U-turn to go get our hubcaps. My friends dad never noticed the road rash on the hubcaps, if he did he never said anything.

 

[PimTac]

Not mine but I heard the story right after it happened as we all stood around the car. While in the Coast Guard, one of our crewmen had a 55 Chevy. I don’t remember the engine but he had it built to race. Racing cams, polished ports, the works. It was a dandy. However he was thinking of selling it and another crew member offered him the right price. That new owner had always wanted something like that Chevy. A few days later the new owner was cruising town and a Corvette pulled up alongside at a light and challenged him. They picked the place and met there. As the Chevy driver told us, they started out together. First gear, second gear, then third gear. He wound it up in third as the Corvette started to pull away. Then at redline he went to fourth but miss-shifted and got it back into second. BOOM. The flywheel shattered and threw shrapnel through the firewall. He had the car towed back to base. As we all stood around the 55, it felt like a funeral. Starting the engine produced a rod knock. The tear down revealed a bent rod plus a lot of bent valves as they had hit the pistons. The engine went out for a rebuild plus new clutch and flywheel and transmission work as well. I left the base before it was finished so I never heard about or saw the final results. That guy just missed getting his foot amputated as some shrapnel had gone clean through the gas pedal support.

 

[Alex_V]

Even if he did, I'd hope coming clean about the cause would have made him more proud than mad.

 

[Leo99]

Well, there was time we were doing 120mph in a '73 Cutlass on a dark road through the Pine Barrens around 2am and got passed from behind by who knows what, it was going so fast. There was the time some pretty girls in a Mustand waved at us and pulled away and my friend's Monza couldn't keep up. I told him to floor it! He said, Dude, it's been floored for the past 5 minutes; it won't go past 90. There was the time a friend from down the street comes over my house with a black Stingray and asks me if want to go for a ride. He talked some guy into letting him wash, wax, and detail it. We drove it like we stole it. Lucky we didn't get arrested as fast as we were going.

 

[Rick in PA]

Springtime in the late '70s. I worked at a gas station. All the local car jocks were out for a springtime ride. They stopped at the traffic light in front of the station. When the light changed, first revved his engine, dropped it in gear and did a burnout. Second revved his engine, dropped it in gear and did a burnout. Third revved his engine, dropped it in gear, then the funny thing happened. There was a BANG, and engine over revved. The third car lazily rolled ahead and his driveshaft rolled out from under the car and the driveshaft rolled into the gutter. He broke both his u-joints. It gave us quite a laugh.

 

[bigj_16]

In the summer of '82, right before I left for the Navy, my buddy and I were cruising the county seat in his '69 Coronet 500 convertible(white interior, burnt orange, 383/330, 4-speed w/ Hurst dogleg, stone stock). I was in the front passenger seat (top down) and we were behind this '70 Mach 1(351C, 4-speed, shaker hood scoop) we had raced before, waiting to pull out of the parking lot. We had the radio up loud and there were a lot of cars going by, so it was noisy. All of a sudden, I felt these burning spots all over my right arm and some on my face. The Mach was doing a serious burnout, and throwing pieces of rubber all over me!

 

[Silk]

I've never been into stop light drags, but we used to drive around in a mates old EIP Vauxhall. We'd sit at the lights next to another car full of young guys, slip the clutch and edge forward, a few revs etc as these things go. Then the lights would change, and with revving of engines and screaming of tyres we'd be off !!! The other car would go flying down the road...and we'd go flying the other way... in reverse ! So much fun, we'd be laughing our heads off at the other guy getting sucked in.

 

[walterjay]

In the late 70's I worked for a Mazda dealer. I was driving one of their 4 door sedans with a rotary engine in it. Those rotarys would wind up like crazy. At a light a 65 Mustang that sounded pretty cool pulled up next to me and egged me on to a race. When the light changed, I wound it up to 14,000 rpms. I snapped away from him like a rubber band. He was too embarasrsed to pass me after that.

 

[Nick1994]

My brother and I were driving around last year in my old Camry. Some ricer in a Civic with a loud cheap exhaust and stanced out tires and suspension kept taking off from lights as fast as he could. So we pulled up next to him and I turned off my a/c for extra power! When the light turned green, he blew the doors off of me! It must've been built. Just the other week in my Sonata some guy in a super huge brand new Ram 2500 had taken off from a light as fast as he could. This thing was lifted probably 8-10 inches and had big tires and a loud exhaust (gas V8 Hemi). At the next light I floored it and we were racing, I could hear his truck screaming at high RPMs and my car barely was winning! His front bumper was about even with my door. Poor guy, he probably had $60k into that truck and it wasn't any faster than my $9,900 base model Hyundai, which isn't that quick to begin with.

 

[Lyman]

Years ago I had a 65 El Camino. Had an LT1 350 and a Muncie 4 spd swapped into it. 411 gears and lots of mods. Sitting at a light on a local frontage road. A guy and a girl pull up next to me revving the engine in a newer Malibu. The light changed and I grabbed second gear and launched past him in a cloud of tire smoke. Only to notice red and blue lights in my rear view mirror. After pulling over the veteran cop was asking if we knew each other. I told him no. The cop told me that he was young once and understood how it is. Told me to get out of there and that he better not see me racing ever again. The good old days!

 

[Camprunner]

Back in the early 70's my uncle had a modified late 60's Pontaic Firebird with a 400 V8 and a stick. He was driving home from Boston late like 3am and was going threw I believe he said the Holland tunnel. He loved to wind up this Pontaic threw tunnels since it was so darn loud! And at 3am no one was on the road but this time when he wound it up BOOM!! That year Firebird used nylon covered timing chain gears and they were prone to breakage! He had enough speed that he coasted all the way to the other end of the tunnel! He got Pontaic to rebuild the engine under warranty so that was good.

 

[Merkava_4]

EXCELLENT STORY !

 

[eyeofthetiger]

I had a '95 Suzuki Swift with the 1.3L. I did a complete rebuild on the motor. New oversized pistons, valve job, ported and polished, new clutch, solid motor mounts, lowering springs, wide sticky tires, the works. So I pull up to a red light next to a dump truck. Now, it was a pretty nice looking truck, but it's just a dump truck. Across from the intersection we have to climb a steep hill. So I figure I had better launch it real good on the green so I could get up the hill and get in front of the truck. So I do a normal launch, which consists of flooring it, hitting the rev limiter, and dumping the clutch. With almost no wheel spin, the car snaps off the line with moderate speed, and I'm already ahead of the truck. Quick bounce off the rev limiter in first and no-lift shift into second somewhere around 25 MPH. And what the ... the dump truck is gaining ... and by the time I shift into third somewhere around 50 MPH, the dump truck is charging up that hill ahead of me. I check the parking brake lever to make sure I didn't leave it on. Nope. Sometimes dump trucks are just fast.

 

[dishdude]

Originally Posted By: Rick in PA

Springtime in the late '70s. I worked at a gas station. All the local car jocks were out for a springtime ride. They stopped at the traffic light in front of the station. When the light changed, first revved his engine, dropped it in gear and did a burnout. Second revved his engine, dropped it in gear and did a burnout. Third revved his engine, dropped it in gear, then the funny thing happened. There was a BANG, and engine over revved. The third car lazily rolled ahead and his driveshaft rolled out from under the car and the driveshaft rolled into the gutter. He broke both his u-joints. It gave us quite a laugh.

Now that's funny!

 

[HoosierJeeper]

Used to have an 05 Durango with a Hemi...it would get scratch going into second gear (2wd) and it showed its tail lights to many a Florida ricer. With the Liberty I've impressed quite a few people off road. One time in Tennessee I was with a Liberty group doing the blue trails at the Windrock off road park and someone came up and was like "I can't believe you guys are taking those road vehicles up here and are actually doing it with ease!!" It was a proud moment.

 

[Shannow]

1986 was my gap year. I had the LJ torana that I'd built up for fun. 186 c.i. 6 cylinder, Yella Terra ported head, 23/60 cam (based on an EH S-4 grind), extractors, triple 1-3/4" S.U. carbies. Was working at a servo in the centre of Canberra, and started at 7AM. Most days I would come across another Torana, gunmetal gray just like mine, but a 2 door...and we'd play...flat out. He'd get ahead, I'd tuck in behind, draft up, then pull out and sneak past him...he'd do the same. Literally, we WERE flat out on public streets. We played for a few months, then one day as I was just creeping past him up a hill, he looked out his window at me, waved, pointed his index finger at the dashboard in an overly dramatic pose, pressed something, then took off literally like something out of Mad Max, blue whisp out the exhaust

 

[oldhp]

It's dark. I'm in my 1975 copper Maverick 6cyl/auto. A Chevelle pulls up. Thumpida-thumpida-thumpida....Raps it out to clean the plugs. Passenger looks at me............I floor it and hold up 3 fingers. He motions to the driver.......3 fingers......2 fingers.......1 fin....GO!!!!!! The Chevelle kills it. I hear it re-fire......too late sucker. I was already stopped at the next red light. We were all laughing our butts off. He says double or nothing. Nope....I beat you and will re-tell this winning drag race story for a very long time.

 

[RedOakRanch]

Back in the late 90's just out of high school I had an 86.5 Mazda RX-7. I drove it as fast as it would go almost all the time, I hit at least 100mph every day for the 2 years I had it. Story 1 There was a car guys hang out every night in a huge parking lot at the busiest intersection in town. The week before a guy with a blown Chevelle had done a burn out through the intersection and beyond and ended up in jail so the racing mood was a bit dim. A new guy showed up with the same car I had but his was turbo. He started talking about how much faster his car was than mine and I was getting a little tired of hearing about it. I had had enough so I challenged him to a race, start at the stoplight and end anywhere in town, his choice and I'll be there first. He gladly accepted as his car so much faster. The route was a half mile past the inter section and then about another half mile down a road to the left. I left the stop light hard and chirping second like a boss and was approaching redline in third in what seemed like a few seconds. I 4 wheel drifted the corner at 70mph, before drifting existed, and procceded up a steep rise in the road. I hit redline in third, 90mph, as jumped the top of the incline and I landed about 60ft down the road and realized the other guy had never followed me! I went back to the hang out and everyone said I beat him so bad off the line that he just turned around after the intersection a left. I win...

 

[RedOakRanch]

Back in the late 90's just out of high school I had an 86.5 Mazda RX-7. I drove it as fast as it would go almost all the time, I hit at least 100mph every day for the 2 years I had it. Story 2 I had just left work on a sunny late afternoon and entered the on ramp to head home. The ramp was elevated at the start and shot you down to the lower level of the highway. I glanced over and saw a Dodge Viper hammered down, he passed me so fast that my head couldn't swing around fast enough to see him! Even though I new I was out gunned I gave chase. I ripped through the gears as fast as I could but I still lost sight of the Viper. I hit redline in 4th, 120mph, and kept accelerating through fifth. After about 5 miles of hyper drive through traffic, still no Viper in sight, I got just enough clear road to safely glace in my rear view mirror. Red and Blue flashing lights... My first thought was very simple. [censored], I won't be able to get around because my bike has flat tires. I knew I wasn't going to be driving again anytime soon. I pulled over and got the butt chewing of a lifetime. The CHP officer looked like a retired Marine drill sergeant and kept yelling at me about how he could take my car, he could take my license and he could put me in jail. I realized that he was saying could, not would, hope began to build. In colorful words he asked if I knew how fast I was going and why I would do something so stupid. I told him the honest truth about the Viper and that I didn't know how fast I was going because I couldn't take my eyes off the road long enough to check. He said he saw me on the on ramp but never saw the Viper, it took him about 5 miles to catch me. He said I looked like a good kid and wrote me up for 75 in a 65. That was the last time I drove so recklessly. I wish I could shake that mans hand and let him know he did the right thing. I was going 135mph.

 

[Kruse]

I grew up on a farm, but my high school was in a town of about 650 people. There was one rent-a-cop that tried to keep order in the town and he had to be careful what last name he would give a ticket to because certain last names were very powerful, so....quite often he'd look the other way. I was young, dumb, invincible and I also had something that a few other high-schoolers didn't have. A set of wheels. In this case, it was a '66 Ford Galaxie that was big enough to hold quite a few classmates. We also drank a lot of beer that was pretty easy to acquire. Did I say I was dumb? Also, this car used to have flush-mounted speakers behind the rear seat, the kind that where you had to cut out a hole to fit them in. But they got ditched and I mounted some box speakers over the holes, the kind where you held them down with four screws. Except in my case, each speaker was held down by a single screw. I'll explain why later. Anyway, Kansas used to have these flimsy farm-permit driver's license that about any kid could get at 14. That was probably my age when this story took place. Myself and about six other guys in my class were in town to drive around. It was somewhat late, way after sundown, and we'd all had way too much beer. One of the guys needed to relieve himself real bad. There used to be this area in deep, deep left field (the town's only baseball field) that had two small buildings close to each other. There was enough space between the buildings to easily drive a car through. It was this area that I dropped a classmate off so he could relieve himself. He was the only one to get out of the car and the rest of us saw his dark silhouette unzip his pants next to one of the buildings. It was at this time that I did a donut on the grass so that the headlights were shining on him as he started to water the grass. He tried to move to the other side of the building, but his pants was dropped about to his knees and he couldn't move very fast. With my car after him, and my headlights shining on his backside, I then chased him around each building in a figure-8 pattern. He had his member in one hand and the other hand was trying to keep his pants from falling down, wetting his denims and trying to remain out of the path of my headlights all at the same time. There was also about five other guys in my car just rolling in laughter while my spinning wheels were tearing up the grass and creating a cloud of dust. I finally stopped the car as our resident "whizzer" had finished and was cursing me and laughing at the same time. As we all drove off, somebody muttered: "Just imagine if our town cop had seen all that!" And about five seconds later, there was a set of flashing red lights behind us. Remember those speakers that were held down by a single screw? Suddenly, the guys in the back seat were turning the speakers about 90° and every single can of beer was being dropped into the trunk. (Those slanted rear windows sometimes make it hard for the cops to see in) I drove a couple of blocks before I pulled over. In the meantime, a few of the kids were putting smokeless tobacco in their mouths to mask the smell of beer. By the time the cop was at my window, all the beer was in the trunk. The cop looked at my learner's permit, gave me a good butt-chewing, threatened to go after me when the complaints of torn grass in the baseball outfield started to come in and them told me to get home. Like I said, I was young, dumb, invincible and if I found out my kids did any of the above, there would be severe consequences. That story also comes up at every high school class reunion and the guys who were in my car are laughing harder now then when it happened decades ago. I also used to have a '66 Mustang with the factory 140 mph speedometer that could tell a few other stories, but I'll pass on that for another day......