American Muscle

a reply to: SlapMonkey

We're the same age, so I know what you mean about picking a car and not really knowing a lot about them. That's kinda how it was when I got the '63 Impala. A guy down the street had it and wanted $500 for it. I didn't realize how cool of a car it really was until after I learned a little more about it.

It sucks when you have to get rid of a car like that, it really is like a family member.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Thunderkiss, haha, I listened to that before every football game we played.

a reply to: esteay812

Yeah, I guess some people go for the aesthetic.


I've always been more into the motion, the violence of those engines doing what they were designed to do.

Same with bikes really, whether its a big Vee twin thundering down the road or a transverse four howling like a banshee.
I just love that energy.

a reply to: pteridine

Studebakers seem like they were really nice cars. I wonder why they weren't able to keep making them. Maybe they just weren't a big enough company to sustain themselves for a long time.

a reply to: SprocketUK

It's amazing when you consider the violence of explosions taking place inside those big engines every second. Some serious engineering that a lot of us probably take for granted was needed to make ICE's.

a reply to: esteay812

Yeah, and when you think of what goes into getting the right alloys, tempering them and suchlike so that all that power doesn't just turn the drivetrain into swarf.

Hell, it's practically alchemy.

a reply to: SprocketUK

It's witchcraft! It really wasn't all that long ago that people would have thought you were a literal god if they saw you driving a car. . . maybe 150 years ago?

a reply to: esteay812

Especially one of those big uns

a reply to: esteay812

This is my first hot rod, not this one but one like it. My parents helped me buy it it for my 16th birthday.
1965 Plymouth Barracuda this one appears to be the base model, some of them had slant 6's in them,

here's a Formula S the highest option package available the way i understood it, mine was the option package just before this. click the red bar in the photo to see the big ugly back glass and back seat area and other interior view. i didn't get mine this clean but it was close. believe it or not my dad kept a back glass one i got out of a donor car in 1977 in his old Barn/Work shop till the day he pasted. i still have there, san't bring myself to sell it.
1965 Plymouth Barracuda – Exclusive Photos!

here is a little piece of the short story i wrote about this car upon the suggestion from my better half. she read the little bit i was gonna post and said that i should tell the whole story like i do when me and the buds get to drinkin every now and then and post it in the short story forum. now mind you, as andy-griffith says "i put a little more jam on the bread to make it more interesting", but the heart of the story is true.

So my parents paid one hundred seventy five plus what the insurance cost was back then, and I paid seventy five. Man what have I just done. While dad and Ernie stood over by the counter shootin the breeze I stood there looking at my … just plain ugly car. It was primer gray, had rust spots all over it, skinny little tires and they needed air, chrome was all dull, glass was dirty, front bumper was hanging down and cocked to the left, both head lights were cracked, right rear tail light lens was half missing, and the list went on. But the worst part about it was the body style, what was I thinking, it’s a freaking big glass bubble. No, I couldn’t have just bought this ugly little car
When I opened up the hood there it was, some more ugly. The black paint on the fire walls was peeling off, old rusty headers with holes in them, I could see what looked like a 4bbl, but it was so dirty that I couldn’t tell much about it. A plastic fuel filter that had turned so brown, you couldn’t tell if there was any fuel in it or not. The plug wires were brittle and cracked and not loomed, other wires and heater hoses just run all over the place, some were even tied down with bailing wire. Looked down at the radiator and seen anti-freeze around the overflow stem, and the cap was lose, the spring was worn out in it. Man what a I’m I gonna do.
So while I was looking down in the engine compartment I thought, I bet the interior is all ratted out to. Walking around to the driver’s door, I was thinking Oh God don’t let the inside be as bad as the outside, no such luck.
When I opened the door first thing I saw was the driver’s seat, the fabric was half way ripped off and the foam padding deteriorating with little pieces of it lying all over the floor. The steering wheel was ugly and had a funny emblem on it that said Valiant on it, How could that be, this is supposed to be a Barracuda not a Valiant, even had Barracuda on the door inside. My grandpa use to drive a ugly red Valiant, this ain't supposed to be a grandpa’s car. That being there didn’t even look right to me. Now that I think about it there were other badges that didn’t make sense, and i wondered why they were on the car at the time. Then I started looking at the dash for the radio what I saw was a freighting sight for a sixteen year old teenager, it was a am radio with the knobs missing and half the push buttons broke. Under the dash was a eight track cassette player hanging by one bracket with a three dog night tape stuck in it. The wires were just hanging out the back running to the left and the right and under the dash. No surprise there after seeing the engine compartment wiring harness. After I figured out where the accessory position was on the ignition switch, I found the radio didn’t work and that the eight track only played through cracked speakers that someone had mounted in the door, and the rear ones had no sound coming from them at all. Damn no tunes for me.
Continuing to inspect the dash and controls, I noticed that there where nothing but idiot gauges that ran off sending units from the factory. Also there was a set of aftermarket gauges, the ones that come as a set of three in a little chrome metal bracket, that was missing the volt meter and the wires for it taped up sticking through the whole. The speedometer registered 120, I thought yeah bet it hasn’t seen that in a few years if ever. I was surprised to see a factory tach that went to six grand and wondered if it worked. There was a switch for the lights and one for the wipers. The wipers were just low and high no intermittent. Just can’t catch a break.
Looking to the passenger side there was a cigarette lighter, and ash tray. Then the heater controls, wait no AC. I didn’t notice when I looked under the hood there was no compressor. That was a bummer, it gets damn hot in Florida during the summer time. No Ac also meant that it’ll be hard to get my girlfriend Michelle to ride with me during the day. She was a little spoiled and didn’t like riding in hot cars, man that really sucks, I just couldn’t have her not ride with me. Was gonna have to do something about that. But there was one bright spot, at least it had a semi sporty factory automatic shifter mounted on the floor. That was the only bright spot I had found so far.
Now I’m sitting there thinking what a piece of junk I had just bought, all my buddies and kids at school are gonna laugh and make fun of me in my POS, I’ll never be able to live this down. Then my Dad and Ernie walked up and said crank it up.
Well I looked down at the key, and thought it’s not gonna bust off? As I turned the key I heard that distinct sound that a Mopar starter makes and then she roared to life. Immediately i heard the exhaust leaks from the holes in the headers. She spit and sputtered a couple of time and then raced up as the automatic choke kicked in. after about a minute or so the choke dropped out and the rpms fell down. As she fell to idle speed then I heard the cam lope, sounded like you could count the firing order. I turned to Ernie and asked if it had a cam in it, he yes that the timing chain had broken and sheared off the pin for the gear in the cam. He also said that he had to replace some lifters and one of the valves. He was telling me about a couple of others things he had done to it so he could sell it, and the main reason he wanted five hundred dollars for it at first. But my mind was not listening. All I could focus on was the cam lope and what kinda power this ugly motor might have. I found out a few weeks later as I was figuring out just what kind of car I bought. I didn’t know it at the time but I had bought a sleeping ugly jewel that would fly.

you folks let me know if i need to finish the story, was thinking about writing about how long i drove it while i saved up to fix it and when i replaced the engine and when i finally let it go. oh and there a bunch more i had written before the part above.it's about the lead up to getting this car.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

That fold down back seat and huge rear window is great. I don't think I saw one of those at the show either or I just looked right past it if there was one.

Yes, definitely finish the story, no need to leave us hanging!

a reply to: esteay812

i'll post when i get it done.

in my small town, and in the two larger ones east or west the whole 3 years i had it, i never saw another one,except the one i bought from the junk yard. then about 10 years go after evrybody started to buy the farms around here i guy moved in and had one. i just had to dig up my old pictures and go introduce my self.

he's a pretty cool guy and drives his all the time. he didn't go muscle with his, just plain stock and it had a 2bbl on it. but he painted it chicken sh@@ yellow with a big black stripe.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

I like looking at the cars that have been worked on, with built engines, nice suspensions, and body work, but I would want mine to be perfectly stock. Maybe a nice paint job, but otherwise untouched.

I'd like to post my mustang but you weirdos would reverse image that so quick.

a reply to: esteay812

i like built engines with just a little flash, just above a sleeper, and body and interior just slightly modified.

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

I can see that. I guess what I was thinking of. more so than a completely stock version, are the cars that have some mods, but still look stock. Probably closer to a sleeper. It's always nice to hear a mean engine note.

a reply to: esteay812

ha ha check this out, i was thinking about including some images with the story and found these two.

this reminds me of just about what mine looked like when i got it. the rust wasn't quite that bad. hell even the yard, smoker and the trailer behind the car reminds me of home.


and this little thing is the first motorcycle i ever had, got it when i was 12. i had minibikes as far back as i can remember, you know the kind that had briggs engines on them but when my cousin got his drit bike i had to have one this is what i got the honda CT70, but hey it was a real motor cycle. i rode the piss out of it, blowed it up twice before my Dad said no more, i use to try and do stuff on that i knew better. damn you know sometimes i miss being a little hellion.




ETA: see where the muffler is if you sat to far back or rode double on it, even though it had a heat shield it would burn you bad. especially if you were wearing shorts

a reply to: hounddoghowlie

Nice, that car isn't in half-bad shape. Someone will get their hands on it and fix it up sooner or later.

Imagine how small that bike seems now compared to when you were a kid. I saw my first dirt bike a few months ago and couldn't believe how little it was. Everything seems so big when you're a kid.

Check this out. . . these are some cars that I left out of the video, but decided to throw together, instead of deleting the videos from existence. There are a couple or more I probably should swapped into the first video:

a reply to: esteay812

When I was 18-20 my daily driver was a 1978 Trans Am with 30k ORIGINAL miles. It was absolutely amazing! It was all original, except for the paint job and the exhaust. I bought it from a friend of my adopted father that owned a body shop. The one and only original owner took it in to get a nice new black paint job on it for $3k, and was laid off from his job the next day. She promised to hold onto it until he got back on his feet, and she would return it once he paid for the paint job.

He never came back! She ended up doing a lien-sale and took title. I bought it for the price of the original paint job, $3k. It was such an amazing car! I could set off every single car alarm in a parking lot if I lightly pressed the gas pedal. It was literally a brand new car, frozen in time. I used to drag race it out in the desert with my buddies. Back then the rice burner Honda's were the popular car to have, and every time I won I felt a nice surge of American Patriotism, which was every time.

I ended up having to sell it, and I am sure that the guy that bought it is still enjoying that ride to this day. I hope I can get another one someday, but I doubt I will come across another once in a lifetime find like that.

Sheesh, I got a little misty eyed writing that haha.

a reply to: Winstonian

Nice story. That sounds like it definitely qualifies as a "Once in a lifetime" deal. You never know though, lightning does trike more than once, you just have to watch closely. It sucks selling something like that I'm sure. In my case, and maybe in most cases, you don't realize how bad it sucks until some years later.

There is a 1979 Trans Am in the video. It is incredible, probably the cleanest and most stock car I've seen like it. It literally appears as if it just rolled off the production line. Makes me wonder how much time, effort and cost goes into making something appear to be brand new, when everything tells me it shouldn't look anything like that.