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Dream Car

I started street racing in this '69 SS 396 4 speed 4.10 12 bolt rear El Camino that was bought new by my father at Yenko Chevrolet.
I got to ride home in from the dealership when I was only 9.
20210619_152556.jpg


A numbers matching ride, my brother restored it about 30 years ago, and I was reunited with it again in June, 43 years after I last drove it.

I was raised in a performance oriented atmosphere and have many stories to tell including some of the parts being made or modified for Don Yenko's Stinger Corvair project in the machineshop in the basement of the home I was raised in.

When I first hit the streets, the musclecars were abundant and rather inexpensive because they were considered gas hogs and just old cars.
There were fuel shortages in the early 70s that began to spell out their demise, emission requirements to curb pollution with replacement vehicles that offered slightly better fuel mileage with disgustingly low power outputs.

My fascination with the older performance vehicles is that most of them were powered by older designed engines and offered very little in the name of braking and handling than their standard passenger cars of that era.
They stopped poorly and handled like they were riding on mush and basically only offered straight line performance.

There are modern engines that will blow away nearly anything from that era with superior engineering and performance, but what is the fun in that?

Incidently, the 283 cubic inch Chevy small block was the first V-8 production car engine to achieve one horsepower per cubic inch in a mechanical fuel injected Corvette in 1957 ;)
 
Back in 2004, I almost purchased this car from a friend, 1969 Ford Cortina, he wanted $400 for it, never did complete that sale... And, yes I do like import cars like this (they are imports to us because I live in Canada)

Ford Cortina 01.jpg


But I think (I know) my dream car would be any variation of the Lotus Seven, in my opinion the most perfect sports car ever, made by both Lotus and other companies continually since the early 1960's, virtually unchanged except for mechanical upgrades...

Lotus Seven 02.jpg


And yes, they are tiny...

Lotus Seven 01.jpg
 
@Nitro

Need I say more... :) This car has been to Las Vegas a couple of times for car meets (all the way from Calgary), one owner since 1977...

A&W Cruise Night 03.jpg
 
Toyota trucks from the 80s and 90s are some of my favorite vehicles.
I still own this 1986 Toyota SR5 4 Runner and have an Frankenstein project truck in the works with an Isuzu diesel engine between the frame rails.
33725_cb38b04b4bae6274a649893b5302b4e4.jpg
 
I started street racing in this '69 SS 396 4 speed 4.10 12 bolt rear El Camino that was bought new by my father at Yenko Chevrolet.
I got to ride home in from the dealership when I was only 9.
View attachment 69579

A numbers matching ride, my brother restored it about 30 years ago, and I was reunited with it again in June, 43 years after I last drove it.

I was raised in a performance oriented atmosphere and have many stories to tell including some of the parts being made or modified for Don Yenko's Stinger Corvair project in the machineshop in the basement of the home I was raised in.

When I first hit the streets, the musclecars were abundant and rather inexpensive because they were considered gas hogs and just old cars.
There were fuel shortages in the early 70s that began to spell out their demise, emission requirements to curb pollution with replacement vehicles that offered slightly better fuel mileage with disgustingly low power outputs.

My fascination with the older performance vehicles is that most of them were powered by older designed engines and offered very little in the name of braking and handling than their standard passenger cars of that era.
They stopped poorly and handled like they were riding on mush and basically only offered straight line performance.

There are modern engines that will blow away nearly anything from that era with superior engineering and performance, but what is the fun in that?

Incidently, the 283 cubic inch Chevy small block was the first V-8 production car engine to achieve one horsepower per cubic inch in a mechanical fuel injected Corvette in 1957 ;)

I'm envious of your history with vintage cars, my life has been far more prosaic and ordinary, and I don't have the right connections to get into the best collections either... :( Sometimes I think I grew up in the wrong era, I'm a wee bit of luddite in my approach to life, love 1960's cars in general, it just seems like there were so many interesting cars around back then, unlike today... Not sure if life was better, or cars were better, but life today seems far too sanitized...
 
I'm envious of your history with vintage cars, my life has been far more prosaic and ordinary, and I don't have the right connections to get into the best collections either... :(
I come from a different era and once I got bitten by the bug, I couldn't let it go.
 
The other side of that coin is the amount of money that I spent to get to play with that stuff.
It was never an inexpensive hobby.
I often times ran side businesses or trades just to support the habit so I didn't tap into my other resources.

Imagine trying to fuel a fleet of rides that were at least 7 liters in displacement.

Here's my '73 Buick Century Luxus that got a 455 stage one engine planted in it around 1982:
34846_75a8ae81c458a9e14cfe7746d603ac71.jpg
 
We always said either cubic inches, or cubic dollars are needed to make serious power :p
 
Before I ever owned a car, my friend used to let me drive his Pontiac Fiero around. Oh man, I would go 100 miles an hour on the freeway sometimes. I would never do that these days. It was one heck of a car!
...
My last car was my little red Toyota Corolla. I got her for free. A stranger gave it to me when I found out I had cancer. It was the smallest car I ever owned. It was a nice car though, nice and modern. I called it my "Rittle Rice Rocket" or "Flo", because that's what the previous owner put on the license plate.

Now I ride the bus stop express, and play the daily game of "tweaker or just smelly?". Meanwhile I dream of my next car....

Fiero's are nice, I can only imagine...

And just make mine a 1980's Toyota Corolla GTS, last of the rear wheel drive examples, and fantastic sports cars!
 
Fiero's are nice, I can only imagine...

And just make mine a 1980's Toyota Corolla GTS, last of the rear wheel drive examples, and fantastic sports cars!
The Fiero and the small van Pontiac offered in that era were an experiment in polyurethane body panels.
 
Last September finally got mine, a 2001 Toyota MR2 Spyder. Did an engine swap to put in the 2ZZ-GE and 6 speed tranny. This month running it at Ginger Man raceway. Depending on how that goes I will tune the suspension. To me, a hot car that is just a highway diva is a waste.
 
I once had a 1972 Buick Centurion ragtop with a 455 and factory dual exhaust.
It was basically an Electra 225 with the rear end slant cut instead of squared and had a lowered suspension system.
I had a buddy that worked on the police cruisers for the City of Pittsburgh that gave me Goodyear Bluestreak radial tires off of them because they weren't allowed to repair them when they went flat. They had a 70 series profile and were ten ply rated to boot, so the old Buick handled like it was on rails for nothing
 
Last September finally got mine, a 2001 Toyota MR2 Spyder. Did an engine swap to put in the and 6 speed tranny. This month running it at Ginger Man raceway. Depending on how that goes I will tune the suspension. To me, a hot car that is just a highway diva is a waste.

When I was a pup, I used to assist in the building and maintenance of a Datsun B-210 SCCA GT4 class ride.
We dynoed our 1.4 l pushrod engines to the tune of 175 horsepower. The only real mods we were allowed were a competition cylinder head and side draft Delorto carbs.
They were fussy engines that would maintain 10,000 RPM shift points on the track and often times we saw 11500 on the tell tale tach from a downshift.
When they blew up, it was like a bomb went off in them :p
I have a lot of money tied up in a 10.90 second class NHRA Super Street project car.
When it is finished, it won't just be a trailer queen either, I will drive it on the street :p
 
Back in 2004, I almost purchased this car from a friend, 1969 Ford Cortina, he wanted $400 for it, never did complete that sale... And, yes I do like import cars like this (they are imports to us because I live in Canada)

View attachment 69580

But I think (I know) my dream car would be any variation of the Lotus Seven, in my opinion the most perfect sports car ever, made by both Lotus and other companies continually since the early 1960's, virtually unchanged except for mechanical upgrades...

View attachment 69582

And yes, they are tiny...

View attachment 69583
We used to build Cortina engines for Formula Ford racecars.
 
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I was involved in building SCCA Formula V engines too.
We took 40 horse 1200cc aircooled VW engines and prepped them for competition.
On our shop, we butchered the conrods, the pistons, the flywheels and the cam followers to lighten them.
The crankshafts were both lightened and then streamlined to reduce windage drag from the oil.
The cylinder heads were lightly ported and refaced where they met the jugs too.
 
I did build one Citation Zink Formula V car for a customer when I was much younger.
It was a good exercise in understanding chassis design.
 
Incidently, the 283 cubic inch Chevy small block was the first V-8 production car engine to achieve one horsepower per cubic inch in a mechanical fuel injected Corvette in 1957
And the 327 reached 365 horsepower, carburated, in 1965.
 

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