Dream cars

[GGJaguar]

1938 Dymaxion

Buck Rogers everyday drive.

 

[Guildedagain]

Yep. That is a cool look. I'd buy one now, if I didn't have a Mustang. I wonder what engine they would have dropped in it?

"Three new engines were added to the option list this year: the 230 hp (172 kW) 302 cu in (4.9 L), four-barrel V8; the 335 hp (250 kW) 428 cu in (7.0 L), four-barrel V8; and the 390 hp (291 kW) 427 cu in (7.0 L), four-barrel V8 "

In 67 they offered both a 351 Windsor and a 351 Cleveland as well as the above. Probably different HP ratings. Most likely the big blocks were so the Nascar boys could have a big racing motors. The 351 Cleveland would have been the motor to have in my opinion.

This is why ( Wait until about 35 seconds in... )

A small big block is where it's at, relatively short stroke equals less rod angle (Cleveland 4.00" bore x 3.50" stroke), more revs without self destruction.

This bore to stroke ratio is extremely similar to the Chrysler 383 @ 4.25" x 3.375" and that engine was a mother of a revver!

While copy guitars were all the rage forever, I was way ahead of the curve and created my own copy car back before anyone had thought of it, in fact it was considered fraudulent.

I couldn't afford a Roadrunner like these rich kids. They'd get a real pretty one for $3k and wrap it around a telephone pole in no time.

All I could afford was a root beer brown Satellite Sebring bench seat column shift 318 car with a blowed engine that was partially stripped because it was a repo, and at $300 I had to buy it on payments.

Basically a shell.

I made a tripod out of tipi pole in my driveway and I switched the engine, unwittingly putting a bad engine in it, living and learning.

Eventually I had a good running 360 small block in it.

I bought a second Satellite, this one a '71 Sebring Plus with 383 HP engine "Slapstick"console shift, but it had been rode real hard and put way wet too many times and while gently tooling around one night, it just up and quit real sudden, I knew something was off.

I checked the crank for rotation, it was seized, solid.

So I pulled the engine, rod bearings were so thin, one had spun, locked up, hardly did any crank damage, these being forged steel crank engines.

At this time, I had just started an Automotive Technology program, 2 years at local comm college, so I was mostly busy with school, and single parenting.

I had the block sonic checked, magnafluxed, etc, etc, passed all tests and I had it bored .040" over to clean it up, and also because I'd scored a set of .040" over Jahns 11.25:1 pistons from a local racer, a vet in a wheelchair who raced 1/4" drags.

Turned the crank at school in machine shop.

The boys at school - I was 10 years older than most just out of high school - were mostly Camaro jockeys with absolutely nothing kind to say about Mopars, "ugly, slow" yada yada, and whenever the topic of my car and engine came up, the usual refrain of "just slap it together" was all I heard.

About this time I met Pat W. RIP, absolutely the best most scientific racer in these parts, who could make a small block 360 do just about anything a big block could.

And he taught me block blueprinting.

The whole block was deburred with my trusty Makita die grinder, and polished.

The rods were polished, in "one direction only to align molecules".

I've been lucky, twice in my life I've been mentored by home mechanics right up there at Einstein level.

The first was a family friend/like a dad back in the 70's.

We tore apart an froze up flathead 6 in a 1941 Dodge Weapons Carrier (Power Wagon), before I ever drove I was in an engine, took out busted rings, loosened valves froze up in guides.

He had that engine running so good, it would idle so low, you could barely hear it, like a sewing machine.

And then he taught me how to drive it, a "crash box" no synchros, "double clutch" all shifts.

Eventually, I drove it to the lake and back all by myself, right here where I'm at now.

This guy was so brilliant with automotive, he knew how to time a really tired old engine so that "there would be less rod slap" and how to drive an old Galaxy 4dr in a way "to avoid rod slap" because the engine was shot.

And not amazingly, as soon as he sold it, and it wasn't driven just like that, it blew up within two days.

And so Pat is teaching me everything he knows about block/head prep.

It's like school with the absolute top guy in local racing, with a ravishing redhead daughter I purposley stayed away from to concentrate on the engine.

Once the block was blueprinted, I brought it home and put in in the kitchen, under the table, for about a year.

In the meantime, I learned how to CC and polish combustion chambers, "squish ratios" and "volumetric efficiency", how to open and polish exhaust ports, leaving the intakes rough for turbulence. I was already proficient - ace - at grinding valves from 1st year Automorive. I found a very vintage Edlebrock Tarantula intake, single plane, definitely not for street, but when you're young...

I polished the stock HP exhaust manifolds, removed the emissions "covered wagon", ceramic coated them, had the heat riser removed from the pass side and the holes Tig welded.

I found a cam/lifters, some insane Isky 525/304 duration cam, straight from "Sugarbear's" '69 Roadrunner drag car. A 350lb guy turning real impressive 1/4 mile times considering the load...

I had the internals balanced by Rick F., who had learned it from Butch Reilly, revered machine shop instructor at school, a racer also.

The guys at school louder than ever "just slap it together already", apparently way too much foreplay for kids that age.

Eventually I graduated Automotive and then engine wasn't finished yet, sorry boys.

 

[Guildedagain]

Part Deux

And I started Heavy Equipment, getting roped into rebuilding big kitty CAT engines so big you torque the mains down with a giant impact gun because they don't make torque wrenches that don't go that high. You torque the mains to 600Ftlb, make a chalk mark, and torque an additional x # of degrees like 90º or more with the impact.


By then I had the engine assembled in the shop, but my super hardnosed instructor Jack P., who was deaf from running CAT dozers back in the Nam, wanted me to start the engine on a stand, with water, etc, instead of just bringing the car in.


So I got it all hooked up, all the Chevy non believers watching, and I started cranking it, and nothing. Jack said stop, you ain't got no compression.


In school they teach you that you need three things to make an engine run.


This is before computers obviously, but the basics don't change.


You need fuel, compression, ignition. If you don't have one of those three, it's not going to happen.


To note, now that I'm working on diesels, for those you who don't know, they don't need an external timed ignition like a gas engine. The diesel engine has such high compression that the heat created is what ignites the fuel, at the top of the compression stroke. That's when they squirt the fuel in and BOOM!


So Jack says I ain't got compression, it's pretty obvious even without a gauge, because it's cranking too fast.


You can actually tell a lot by the way an engine cranks with the ignition disabled. The tone should be the same across all cylinders, speeding up momentarly with correspondingly higher pitch means a weak cylinder.


So of course as a newbie, I somehow - and this is the drug free part of my life - timed the cam wrong. The pistons were heavily dished for "valve float" at insane RPM so nothing was hurt, and I got the cam timed right, this time learning me some lessons about "degree-ing" with a degree wheel.


And this time it fired right up, on basically open headers, with that cam, Holy F... The old instructor Jack was deaf, but he wasn't that deaf, and I was pretty sure I was gonna get an F just from the look on his face.


To learn some of you on starting a new engine, NEVER EVER let it idle. For 20 minutes.


No revving up and down, just a solid 2500 RPM, watch for overheating, etc.


This is to break in the cam/lifters, each having a unique wear relationships, 16 lifters, and they can't every be mixed up, it's pretty easy to destroy a cam lobe. In my cam's case, of course the lifters were kept in order, egg cartons are great for this, and guitar tuners to keep them in order during surgical procedures, 12 eggs, 12 strings, 12 tuners. 12 months, apostles, etc.


So the engine is screaming, a deafening 100+ Db inside the huge shop building, like heavenly music... Eventually you bring the idle down, let it idle, bring the revs up and down, and that cam sounded like music, almost made people dance.


So then Jack let me bring the car in.


By this point the Root Beer Brown paint was gone, replaced with Rally Red, white top died black, Roadrunner hood and emblems, Centerline wheels, the console shift/buckets from the Sebring Plus replaced the original bench seat/column shift. I cut all the old mounts and welded them in, starting a fire while welding - with gas - under the car that my best bud - Beasly - from school saved me and the car and the garage from burning by screaming at me, I stopped welding and we got it put out.


Not too long after, I got a phone call from his mom in the middle of the night, he'd wrapped his car around a telephone pole about 100 miles away, they would't let her even see the body. A passenger in the car dead also.


Luckily it wasn't me, we did a LOT of crazy stuff back then. Me and him together, in cars, roving around at night, doing endless burnouts in one of our cars. I'd picked up a third '71 Satellite Sebring Plus, with a 383 2bbl, just for daily transpo, and that car would fry tires all night, and sound like your mom's car in the morning, a most impressive testament to Chrysler big block longevity.


I also built the tranny for the car, a 727, I became an expert in rebuilding them, building races trannies in my back yard for buddies mostly.


I used a Transgo Stage II Shiftkit, and all the settings in the valve body were set for "TRACK ONLY" just because.


So I got the engine in the car, put the hood on, took it for a spin down the river road where Heavy Equipment was at, very handy, and mind you there's no pipes, because I have to go to my favorite muffler shop and get exhaust built*, so it's as loud as that video, but just under the dash board, and if any of you are fans of "open headers", you know what I'm talking about.


So this car's got tall gears, 3:23, so I'm winding it out down the river road tentativelly for the first time, and it's about as loud as your typical 1/4 mile drag car, I drive by the Nursing program, impressing all the pretty nurses no doubt, by this time I'm up to about 4000 RPM, and if you know your old V8's that's getting up there near "Redline", then a bit more, 5000 RPM!


And because it's balanced, it's so smooth inside the car that it feels like you have the engine turned off, so that was weird, but I kept giving more. The engine was built race, the right - loose - ring gaps, bearing clearances just right, not tight like most new engines and now away from all school building having flown past Fire Scence I floorboarded it and it instantly tached out at in INCREDIBLE 7500RPM!!!



I was stunned.


Wtf had just happened?


I took the car back to class, tried not to brag, let it cool down.


Did I mention the "Windage Tray" set up between the oil in the pan and the cank?


The oil in the pan gets caught up in a giant vortex around the spinning crank, robbing you of about 20HP, also using Valvoline Racing Oil in "straight weight" 40W, prob 10HP increase over your typical 20W-50 for heavy duty applications at that time. Lighter weight oil = less friction.


The engine had amazing oil pressure as I found out when I had exploded an oil filter on a cold morning, warming up in the garage, a mess... and started using a then $15 a pop K&N oil filter with a burst strentgh of over 150PSI.


Next I took it to Dave's Muffler, where the kid's Dad had been doing my exhaust way back before, Dave Jr. was just a teen. To get exhaust this critical done just right, Dave had me show up at the end of the day - driving it across town on open headers was fabulous - I drove it on the rack, shut it off, he closed the door, flipped the Open sign, cracked a beer, and proceeded to weld that nicest exhaust, work like Michaelangelo. Their name is Matozzi, so definitely some Italian artistry there, like Guilds.


The exhaust got an "H pipe" for "scavenging".


Used brand new on the market Flowmasters, and man did they have a growl, I only wish I'd had audio from the back.


I also had Dave weld theaded ports in each downpipe so I could thread in some everyday emissions "Anti Backfire Valves" and run braided stainless hoses up to the Direct Connection valve covers, building what they call a "Pan Evac" sytem, using the negative pressure in the downpipes to evecuate the extreme pressure in the crankcase at RPM's like this, the back of the pistons working like a giant air compressor.


Just out of school, graduating with double degrees, I got my 1st job at Hill's Automotive. $1500 salary in 1991, I was in heaven, my rent was $275 a month with a nice garage.


The owner's kid builds vintage Ford or Chevy monster trucks, so it's not long before I'm telling him about my 383 that spins 7500RPM, and he calls bullsh*t, saying there's no way a Chrysler big block can turn RPM like that.


So then I drove the car to work the next day, and at lunch time off we go out in noonday traffic, I find a place to open up, he's staring intently at the Autometer Monster Tach. Only took one block and it was uphill, and we were heading back to the shop, John Jr. wasn't saying a whole lot.


Balanced/blueprinted 383, big cam, Mallory ignition, electric fans, real aircraft hoses.

Sebring/Rally Red Roadrunner at night

Some of my other street fighting machines at the time.

'77 Ramcharger 400/4sp with '68 Roadrunner cast iron 4bbl intake and carb, a full time 4x4 beast, capable eating Corvette's lunches at lights as well as doing some scary off roading, including an engine fire.

'71 Challenger 340/Pistol Grip 4sp with Dana Trak Pak Dana 60 rear end from 400 Six Pack or Hemi E body car. Forget the "red cars get followed more" myth, the dark blue - originally Green Go - Challenger got me followed by more cops than the Sebring/Roarunner ever did. 




This is the way to go get groceries!


 

[Wilmywood]

My dream car is below. I worked on it for two years from the first bolt tightened on it through its first 4 wins. 1989/90 All American Racers Eagle Toyota HF89/90 in IMSA's GTP class.

 

[Opsimath]

Part Deux

And I started Heavy Equipment, getting roped into rebuilding big kitty CAT engines so big you torque the mains down with a giant impact gun because they don't make torque wrenches that don't go that high. You torque the mains to 600Ftlb, make a chalk mark, and torque an additional x # of degrees like 90º or more with the impact.


By then I had the engine assembled in the shop, but my super hardnosed instructor Jack P., who was deaf from running CAT dozers back in the Nam, wanted me to start the engine on a stand, with water, etc, instead of just bringing the car in.


So I got it all hooked up, all the Chevy non believers watching, and I started cranking it, and nothing. Jack said stop, you ain't got no compression.


In school they teach you that you need three things to make an engine run.


This is before computers obviously, but the basics don't change.


You need fuel, compression, ignition. If you don't have one of those three, it's not going to happen.


To note, now that I'm working on diesels, for those you who don't know, they don't need an external timed ignition like a gas engine. The diesel engine has such high compression that the heat created is what ignites the fuel, at the top of the compression stroke. That's when they squirt the fuel in and BOOM!


So Jack says I ain't got compression, it's pretty obvious even without a gauge, because it's cranking too fast.


You can actually tell a lot by the way an engine cranks with the ignition disabled. The tone should be the same across all cylinders, speeding up momentarly with correspondingly higher pitch means a weak cylinder.


So of course as a newbie, I somehow - and this is the drug free part of my life - timed the cam wrong. The pistons were heavily dished for "valve float" at insane RPM so nothing was hurt, and I got the cam timed right, this time learning me some lessons about "degree-ing" with a degree wheel.


And this time it fired right up, on basically open headers, with that cam, Holy F... The old instructor Jack was deaf, but he wasn't that deaf, and I was pretty sure I was gonna get an F just from the look on his face.


To learn some of you on starting a new engine, NEVER EVER let it idle. For 20 minutes.


No revving up and down, just a solid 2500 RPM, watch for overheating, etc.


This is to break in the cam/lifters, each having a unique wear relationships, 16 lifters, and they can't every be mixed up, it's pretty easy to destroy a cam lobe. In my cam's case, of course the lifters were kept in order, egg cartons are great for this, and guitar tuners to keep them in order during surgical procedures, 12 eggs, 12 strings, 12 tuners. 12 months, apostles, etc.


So the engine is screaming, a deafening 100+ Db inside the huge shop building, like heavenly music... Eventually you bring the idle down, let it idle, bring the revs up and down, and that cam sounded like music, almost made people dance.


So then Jack let me bring the car in.


By this point the Root Beer Brown paint was gone, replaced with Rally Red, white top died black, Roadrunner hood and emblems, Centerline wheels, the console shift/buckets from the Sebring Plus replaced the original bench seat/column shift. I cut all the old mounts and welded them in, starting a fire while welding - with gas - under the car that my best bud - Beasly - from school saved me and the car and the garage from burning by screaming at me, I stopped welding and we got it put out.


Not too long after, I got a phone call from his mom in the middle of the night, he'd wrapped his car around a telephone pole about 100 miles away, they would't let her even see the body. A passenger in the car dead also.


Luckily it wasn't me, we did a LOT of crazy stuff back then. Me and him together, in cars, roving around at night, doing endless burnouts in one of our cars. I'd picked up a third '71 Satellite Sebring Plus, with a 383 2bbl, just for daily transpo, and that car would fry tires all night, and sound like your mom's car in the morning, a most impressive testament to Chrysler big block longevity.


I also built the tranny for the car, a 727, I became an expert in rebuilding them, building races trannies in my back yard for buddies mostly.


I used a Transgo Stage II Shiftkit, and all the settings in the valve body were set for "TRACK ONLY" just because.


So I got the engine in the car, put the hood on, took it for a spin down the river road where Heavy Equipment was at, very handy, and mind you there's no pipes, because I have to go to my favorite muffler shop and get exhaust built*, so it's as loud as that video, but just under the dash board, and if any of you are fans of "open headers", you know what I'm talking about.


So this car's got tall gears, 3:23, so I'm winding it out down the river road tentativelly for the first time, and it's about as loud as your typical 1/4 mile drag car, I drive by the Nursing program, impressing all the pretty nurses no doubt, by this time I'm up to about 4000 RPM, and if you know your old V8's that's getting up there near "Redline", then a bit more, 5000 RPM!


And because it's balanced, it's so smooth inside the car that it feels like you have the engine turned off, so that was weird, but I kept giving more. The engine was built race, the right - loose - ring gaps, bearing clearances just right, not tight like most new engines and now away from all school building having flown past Fire Scence I floorboarded it and it instantly tached out at in INCREDIBLE 7500RPM!!!



I was stunned.


Wtf had just happened?


I took the car back to class, tried not to brag, let it cool down.


Did I mention the "Windage Tray" set up between the oil in the pan and the cank?


The oil in the pan gets caught up in a giant vortex around the spinning crank, robbing you of about 20HP, also using Valvoline Racing Oil in "straight weight" 40W, prob 10HP increase over your typical 20W-50 for heavy duty applications at that time. Lighter weight oil = less friction.


The engine had amazing oil pressure as I found out when I had exploded an oil filter on a cold morning, warming up in the garage, a mess... and started using a then $15 a pop K&N oil filter with a burst strentgh of over 150PSI.


Next I took it to Dave's Muffler, where the kid's Dad had been doing my exhaust way back before, Dave Jr. was just a teen. To get exhaust this critical done just right, Dave had me show up at the end of the day - driving it across town on open headers was fabulous - I drove it on the rack, shut it off, he closed the door, flipped the Open sign, cracked a beer, and proceeded to weld that nicest exhaust, work like Michaelangelo. Their name is Matozzi, so definitely some Italian artistry there, like Guilds.


The exhaust got an "H pipe" for "scavenging".


Used brand new on the market Flowmasters, and man did they have a growl, I only wish I'd had audio from the back.


I also had Dave weld theaded ports in each downpipe so I could thread in some everyday emissions "Anti Backfire Valves" and run braided stainless hoses up to the Direct Connection valve covers, building what they call a "Pan Evac" sytem, using the negative pressure in the downpipes to evecuate the extreme pressure in the crankcase at RPM's like this, the back of the pistons working like a giant air compressor.


Just out of school, graduating with double degrees, I got my 1st job at Hill's Automotive. $1500 salary in 1991, I was in heaven, my rent was $275 a month with a nice garage.


The owner's kid builds vintage Ford or Chevy monster trucks, so it's not long before I'm telling him about my 383 that spins 7500RPM, and he calls bullsh*t, saying there's no way a Chrysler big block can turn RPM like that.


So then I drove the car to work the next day, and at lunch time off we go out in noonday traffic, I find a place to open up, he's staring intently at the Autometer Monster Tach. Only took one block and it was uphill, and we were heading back to the shop, John Jr. wasn't saying a whole lot.


Balanced/blueprinted 383, big cam, Mallory ignition, electric fans, real aircraft hoses.

Sebring/Rally Red Roadrunner at night

Some of my other street fighting machines at the time.

'77 Ramcharger 400/4sp with '68 Roadrunner cast iron 4bbl intake and carb, a full time 4x4 beast, capable eating Corvette's lunches at lights as well as doing some scary off roading, including an engine fire.

'71 Challenger 340/Pistol Grip 4sp with Dana Trak Pak Dana 60 rear end from 400 Six Pack or Hemi E body car. Forget the "red cars get followed more" myth, the dark blue - originally Green Go - Challenger got me followed by more cops than the Sebring/Roarunner ever did. 




This is the way to go get groceries!


I'm very sorry about your friend.

I read all that, both posts; understood nearly none of it but wish I did! Is there a pill I can take to know what you know?

How long did it take to build the Roadrunner start to finish?

And, red! Yes!!!

 

[gjmalcyon]

Balanced/blueprinted 383, big cam, Mallory ignition, electric fans, real aircraft hoses.

I close my eyes and I smell hot oil, maybe just a tiny sweet whiff of coolant, and I hear the pings and clicks of cooling metal.

Beautiful.

 

[davismanLV]

This is a real beauty!! 1954 Cadillac Pininfarina Roadster

 

[Guildedagain]

I'm very sorry about your friend.

I read all that, both posts; understood nearly none of it but wish I did! Is there a pill I can take to know what you know?

How long did it take to build the Roadrunner start to finish?

And, red! Yes!!!

Yeah, Beasly was a good friend, sniff. He hung out with me so much I was starting to think he was sweet on me, lonely kid.

I got the Roadrunner when my kid was born in '86. Took about 4 years. I got 3 show trophies for it, a couple 2nd place in in it's class, B Body (Roadrunners/Chargers) Modified. And then finally a 1st place in it's Class at the Northwest Mopar Nationals in 1991. I threw the trophies away but kept the metal plaques from them.

It just had to be red.

I totaled a car - ok, it was just a Volkswagen - with the beast once, about two blocks from the elementary school the kiddo went to later.

I blame it on fuzzy dice.

I think it was my sweetie, baby mama wanted fuzzy dice, and anyway, they kinda get in your vision, and the baby carseated in the front, in the middle, so maybe a little distracted there too, and then there's this Yellow Rabbit in the middle of the intersection, I mean these are pretty tiny cars, the ones you saw in the first commercials that would chirp the tires in every gear.

And then I hit him, on the driver's side front fender.

I was only loafing, Baby on Board and all, but rang his bell pretty hard.

I pull over and get out, look, and the Silly Wabbit is in the middle of the intersection, a side street, and the driver's side front wheel is flat on the ground, wheel, tire, hub, brakes, it's separated from the the car. The car is totaled and can't even be moved.

So then I look at him, wondering what species drives an inferior piece of junk like this, obviously not up to the rigors of life on the street in America.

And he turn out to be the species that "has no driver's license and want to get the fk outa there", albeit on a foot and a little bruised, but I gave him my blessing to go.

Next, the precious (baby and mom were fine, I don't remember the kid even crying, maybe slept through the whole thing, like I said these cars are tiny, and tinny), my front bumper and "valence panel" were a little dinged up but not bad, but I wanted to GTF outa there too, so we went home and I promptly learned how to do body work. This is before car got painted red so it was real easy to touch up and make it look like nothing ever happened.

I won all three show trophies with that same bumper on the car, once people saw the engine they spend a lot of time looking at a ding in the bumper.

Those cars had a very cool wraparound front bumper, 1971, 1972 only.

 

[GGJaguar]

This is a real beauty!! 1954 Cadillac Pininfarina Roadster

So sleek!

 

[JohnW63]

( Referring to the car with the fin on top, that I thought I was posting right after ) The Beatles should have had one of those. Parked next to the submarine.

 

[beecee]

 

[mellowgerman]

My dream car is modified... which may not surprise those of you who frequent the bass section of this forum
In any case, my first car was a 1997 Ford Escort "Sport" (normal sedan with a little spoiler on the trunk and aluminum hub caps instead of plastic), I loved it dearly and drove it for several years. It didn't have power windows or locks. It had a cassette deck with a wire coming out of it, that I would play my Sony CD Walkman through and I had the system worked out perfectly, with the walkman smushed in between my seat and center console, so that the controls were facing up and I could easily skip tracks or even hold down the next-button to fast forward (when necessary). It never gave me any issues, was good on gas, and the speakers actually sounded pretty nice. Oh also, it never had any stupid computer components failing, sabotaging key functions of the car, like every other vehicle I've had since. Oh it also doesn't infiltrate all of my phone storage via Bluetooth (which I have stopped using in my current car for that very reason, but still feeling a little et-tu-Brute over).

Now to the dream scenario... I find one of the below 1997 Escort Vans (preferably with no power luxuries, just like my old trusty #1) with extremely low miles. It has sat in a garage for 25 years, only being taken out on occasional short strolls through the neighborhood, still getting regular maintenance, preparing it for a long 1/4 Century of waiting before I inevitably find it in a 2024 local newspaper classified listing. After having determined it is practically still brand new, pristine condition, marveling at the sleek sun-reflecting white paint and large cargo chamber capable of holding multiple basses and amps, I make the purchase. Then I just have to address the one thing this dream machine lacks... I will have to task an expert mechanic with installing a basic turbo, which is something that my current Jetta, regardless of all its faults, has taught me I need. I'm not a fast-driving guy, but I have noticed how nice it is to have that little bit of extra vroom-vroom on tap when navigating the crazy-driver-infested highways in the Orlando area. Then I just have to add a basic dash cam and my R2D2 action figure copilot.

 

[RBSinTo]

My dream car is modified... which may not surprise those of you who frequent the bass section of this forum
In any case, my first car was a 1997 Ford Escort "Sport" (normal sedan with a little spoiler on the trunk and aluminum hub caps instead of plastic), I loved it dearly and drove it for several years. It didn't have power windows or locks. It had a cassette deck with a wire coming out of it, that I would play my Sony CD Walkman through and I had the system worked out perfectly, with the walkman smushed in between my seat and center console, so that the controls were facing up and I could easily skip tracks or even hold down the next-button to fast forward (when necessary). It never gave me any issues, was good on gas, and the speakers actually sounded pretty nice. Oh also, it never had any stupid computer components failing, sabotaging key functions of the car, like every other vehicle I've had since. Oh it also doesn't infiltrate all of my phone storage via Bluetooth (which I have stopped using in my current car for that very reason, but still feeling a little et-tu-Brute over).

Now to the dream scenario... I find one of the below 1997 Escort Vans (preferably with no power luxuries, just like my old trusty #1) with extremely low miles. It has sat in a garage for 25 years, only being taken out on occasional short strolls through the neighborhood, still getting regular maintenance, preparing it for a long 1/4 Century of waiting before I inevitably find it in a 2024 local newspaper classified listing. After having determined it is practically still brand new, pristine condition, marveling at the sleek sun-reflecting white paint and large cargo chamber capable of holding multiple basses and amps, I make the purchase. Then I just have to address the one thing this dream machine lacks... I will have to task an expert mechanic with installing a basic turbo, which is something that my current Jetta, regardless of all its faults, has taught me I need. I'm not a fast-driving guy, but I have noticed how nice it is to have that little bit of extra vroom-vroom on tap when navigating the crazy-driver-infested highways in the Orlando area. Then I just have to add a basic dash cam and my R2D2 action figure copilot.

mellowgerman,
Did it come equipped with the missile-launching tube or did you add that?
RBSinTo

 

[mellowgerman]

mellowgerman,
Did it come equipped with the missile-launching tube or did you add that?
RBSinTo

Ah forgot to mention that. It's actually my chocolate croissant storage tube. Major space-saver when I'm trying to load up the full bass rig.

 

[Opsimath]

I'm sticking with the above, any year as long as it's Eddie Bauer, and red is a preference. When they repainted they even did the pinstripes, gotta have the pinstripes.

Most unfortunately it's out of my "I'm retired now" budget, but my goodness I would look quite fetching piloting that lovely rig. Well, anyone would, really.

 

[JohnW63]

Someone needs a go fund me page for a 90s Ford Bronco. Rust free please.

 

[Opsimath]

 

[davismanLV]

Okay, so not a car at all, but transport.... I kinda fell in love with this scooter!!

 

[JohnW63]

I had to look it up Cynthia. I guess I'm not as big a car guy as I could be.

I have a 1-5-4-2-6-3-7-8, and drive my wife's 153624, her not ready one is also 153624, and my not ready one is 1342.

 

[Opsimath]

I drive a 13726548.