It has perhaps become obvious to many of you that "impulse buying" is something many Reed's suffer from; the bigger the mistake it could be, the more of a hurry we are in to "just get it over with". As quickly as Jimmy was able to destroy Mustangs, he was able to find them. This one was located in a "development" (similar to a trailer park, but without the mobility) not far from the house on Old Spies, in fact, it was just off Spies Church Rd. Just as the sun was setting, Jimmy dragged me up there to look at a Mach 1. "It even has the fold-down rear seats, a rare option", Jim enticed. Flat tires, mismatched and cracked after-market wheels, missing a fender, and with at least one dent on every panel of the car... it even looked rough to my extremely optimistic eyes. It got darker. But it WAS a 69, arguably the Mustang that looked the most like an F-14 fighter jet, and we hadn't had one yet... When Jim gave the guy the $150, I think he left before we did. When Jim (amazingly) got it running later, we could see that the crankshaft could (and did) move forwards and backwards about 3/4 inch, yikes. In the light of day, we realized that anything of value on the car was ruined. The console was hacked up, every single piece of trim was somehow besmirched, the seats were ripped, nothing was saveable. "No more car purchases at night!" Jim decreed. Finally, when the "rare", optional, fold-down rear seat was folded up, it became evident that someone had tried to spray paint it black and then closed it -wet- in frustration. Jim stomped off somewhere.
A few hours later, we had decided to drop the 351 Cleveland four barrel that I had hanging from the engine hoist (well, we all know it was a burial vault hoist) into the Mach 1. In those days, we seemed to swap engines in minutes rather than hours, and this one was just hanging there all in one piece, with a transmission and everything. I knew it was fast, I had pulled it out of a 71 GT which was the fastest year for this particular engine. But I wasn't prepared.
By late afternoon, we were pulling out of the driveway for a test-drive. I can't remember if the windshield was in, but there wasn't much glass in the car, nor much of an interior. There was a seatbelt, and even in 1982 (or whenever this was) I knew to put it on. Jim pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and we were stunned to learn that the car had another "rare" option, a posi-traction rear, meaning that both tires started spinning and the car was fishtailing wildly through the narrow passage between the Horst's (or the Henry's) house and garage. We were doing 60 before we even got to the Palm's house and it was a sliding screeching miracle we made the corner around Keidiech's house. Jim was going crazy, maybe he had been so depressed by the car originally that he was making up for it in adrenalin, I don't know. We actually did slow down a little as we passed by Shaaber's and Paul's, and exchanged our enthusiastic remarks/expletives for the power of this new engine. At the "S" turn, Jim power-slid the car through the narrow stone bridge in a ferociously graceful curve, which was hair-raising to say the least. We started up the other side in a wide slide. Then the pedal went to the floor again, I read "let's see what it can do" in Jim's body language. I was giddy with fear by the time we passed Wanshop, I was very worried as we continued to accelerate past the big pond. What was Jim thinking? In one second, we would pass the place where -if we slammed on the brakes- we might be able to stop by the "T" intersection. Three or four LONG seconds passed before Jim switched from "floored" to "sliding". WE went through the stop sign at about 50 mph sliding diagonally. We went right off the other side of the road, up the bank and between the phone pole and the guy wire. Still traveling 40 mph, more or less in someone's field, Jim's foot was back on the gas, the car was fishtailing and spinning, dirt and grass were flying everywhere. We made a wide arc toward Spies Church Rd, sliding onto it, fishtailing off into a parking lot for the namesake church, sliding around in a loop, back to Folk Hill Rd. Making the left onto Old Spies, Jim let the car settle down to maybe 20 mph and drove home quite calmly.
Other than to say "Oh man!", I don't think we talked much after that ride, both of us in our own very-different universes.
A few hours later, we had decided to drop the 351 Cleveland four barrel that I had hanging from the engine hoist (well, we all know it was a burial vault hoist) into the Mach 1. In those days, we seemed to swap engines in minutes rather than hours, and this one was just hanging there all in one piece, with a transmission and everything. I knew it was fast, I had pulled it out of a 71 GT which was the fastest year for this particular engine. But I wasn't prepared.
By late afternoon, we were pulling out of the driveway for a test-drive. I can't remember if the windshield was in, but there wasn't much glass in the car, nor much of an interior. There was a seatbelt, and even in 1982 (or whenever this was) I knew to put it on. Jim pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and we were stunned to learn that the car had another "rare" option, a posi-traction rear, meaning that both tires started spinning and the car was fishtailing wildly through the narrow passage between the Horst's (or the Henry's) house and garage. We were doing 60 before we even got to the Palm's house and it was a sliding screeching miracle we made the corner around Keidiech's house. Jim was going crazy, maybe he had been so depressed by the car originally that he was making up for it in adrenalin, I don't know. We actually did slow down a little as we passed by Shaaber's and Paul's, and exchanged our enthusiastic remarks/expletives for the power of this new engine. At the "S" turn, Jim power-slid the car through the narrow stone bridge in a ferociously graceful curve, which was hair-raising to say the least. We started up the other side in a wide slide. Then the pedal went to the floor again, I read "let's see what it can do" in Jim's body language. I was giddy with fear by the time we passed Wanshop, I was very worried as we continued to accelerate past the big pond. What was Jim thinking? In one second, we would pass the place where -if we slammed on the brakes- we might be able to stop by the "T" intersection. Three or four LONG seconds passed before Jim switched from "floored" to "sliding". WE went through the stop sign at about 50 mph sliding diagonally. We went right off the other side of the road, up the bank and between the phone pole and the guy wire. Still traveling 40 mph, more or less in someone's field, Jim's foot was back on the gas, the car was fishtailing and spinning, dirt and grass were flying everywhere. We made a wide arc toward Spies Church Rd, sliding onto it, fishtailing off into a parking lot for the namesake church, sliding around in a loop, back to Folk Hill Rd. Making the left onto Old Spies, Jim let the car settle down to maybe 20 mph and drove home quite calmly.
Other than to say "Oh man!", I don't think we talked much after that ride, both of us in our own very-different universes.
No. Words.
ReplyDeleteExcept our neighbors must have hated us. Or maybe they were just like us.