I bid ONE DOLLAR!!!
EACH!!!
(That's all I have left after nuking my credit cards on mine....
)
But I don't know about this 100 miles a year thing - I've just crossed 26,000 since July.
My $21K in repairs/mods could have really been about $5K if I wasn't upgrading and modifying everything to take a 1,000 HP monster big-block mill, trust myself to do all the repairs I would have done on a Mopar, 4 Wheeler or other Chevy, and didn't buy every superfluous tool, supply and book I found.
As far as rattle - I
still don't get this one. I've never owned a tighter handling, finer vehicle. I've never
rented one either, and I've rented probably over 50 in the last ten years. I cured most of the worst rattles with just tightening some spoiler bolts and adding door parts the last idiot took off to paint.
I guess that's just culture or time shock though. Of the 25 or so cars I've owned, I've never owned a running one newer than 1986 and only two in the '80's at all. I never could stomach having endless car payments for some reason (although $50K+ in 20% CC debt doesn't seem to annoy me enough! :Silly ), and recently watched with horror as Texas changed it's pollution inspection procedures to, in some ways, worse than California.
I don't even find temporarily driving mine with a disconnected PS pump much of an annoyance, having driven the Blazer that way for months with
real 4-Wheeler tires.
Similarly, I am equally amused by those wondering what a vacuum advance and such is for - I've only ever owned
one car with EFI and after a fire, I
converted it!!! To me
all cars have real distributors and carburetors.
Now I drive newmobiles on rental and at work, so I'm not unfamiliar with them, in person, but I have yet to be overly impressed.
Only once have I been in
any vehicle that you could take to (corrected for tires) 136 with the top down and one hand on the wheel and both feel and be in complete control. That car is
my '75 and I know it could have gone further with more gear or motor, a lot more with some aerodynamics.
I pushed one of the new Caddy's or Lincolns I rented about 4-5 years back up to 130 and, while in control, I was not comfortable. I felt like I was floating and at any moment could have lost it. Not so with the vette - I tried lane changes and everything.
As for handling - wow. I've driven a few of the little performance ricers friends had, some tricked out early '90's Mustangs too. I don't know any of these I could take on some of the curves and corners I take this thing on every day at really silly speeds
without even a tire squeeling! Maybe they didn't set theirs up right - I don't know, but
this 28-year old thing sticks to the pavement like it was glued there - I've had to relearn how to drive, because I never believed this was possible.
There's one highway curve in particular in the Dallas area I can't resist hitting hard everytime I go around it. In north Dallas/Farmer's Branchish 635 intersects 35E. The southern turn off of that when heading west is a three lane thing of about 80 degrees in a fairly large arc, banked correctly about 10-15 degrees, with two nasty bumps in the middle of it.
I was besides one of these nameless Zeromobiles or another - all wedge-shaped with about 50 different fairings and wings and absurd 1/4" rubber-under rim hyper-low aspect tires - (I think it was a Galant) running along 635 at 85 or so.
I moved to the far right lane so if I lost it only I paid for it. I took that curve somewhere aound 5200 or so - which is about a corrected 105. The tires
did finally squeel a little coming down after the second bump. In my rear veiw mirror a good 10+ car lengths back now, where he (or she - I never saw) had had to drop back to, I saw him/her have to let off even more and come over to the right lane and even into the right shoulder a little to hold onto it.
Sorry - I don't find anything inadequate about that, even by today's standards. I've only gone about half-way on the suspension upgrades too. My gawd, mine survived
without wrecking! losing a rear
wheel at 80! Still having power, I managed to get it another 300-500 yards to the opposite lane to shut it down safely -
on three wheels! That should have killed me and worse, wrecked the car, and
would have in one of these ricers or a Mustang or a Cuda or even one of the last Camaro's. Not in the "rattlemobile" though.
Mine
has been staggeringly expensive, and I'm really only 35-40% of the way into the project, but most of that was my fault.
Now that I've finished defending my master
tell me about your '75 and the louvered hood scoop and twin 4's! That have that monstrous an engine or were you just foooling around?
Looks neat to my twisted tastes!
In at 95 out at 105. Back when I was young and dumb in a 69 firebird.
