Car Porn

I bought my 70 Formula 400 in 1976. A student in university owned it and could not afford the gas any more so he sold it. I was only 19 at the time. At the time, I had sold my old 65 Pontiac Parisienne, plus a 1973 Yamaha 360 Enduro, plus a 1974 Honda 750cc. Motorcycle for the dirt, one for cruising the higways and the Parisienne to haul my cartop fishing boat and cart my buddies around. Then time for a better car.

Then came the Firebird in 1976. It was stock, zero changes. Had only 20,000 miles on it. Man what a rush seeing the car in as new condition. Guy who had it really babied it too.

That Firebird was the best car I have ever owned even to date. Ran like a dream, and as you know power to spare. Cornered like a demon. What a chick magnet too for a young guy!

Once it had 100,000 miles on it, I gave it to a local mechanic who was the shop foreman for the largest Pontiac dealer in Vancouver area. He had quit the dealer and opened his own mechanic shop, just him doing all the work and he knew pretty much everything about every car ever built. Nothing he could not fix. He was also a good family friend which really helped.

I went to work salmon commercial fishing over the summer, and left the car with him and asked him to do a full rebuild on the engine. No changes, all stock, just full rebuild. Same with transmission.

Then had a local body shop redo the paint. Interior was as new, nothing needed there.

Car was freaking beautiful, but my life is full time fishing and exploring in the bush, always has been. So I ended up trading it in at a local Ford dealer for a 1986 F150 4x4, straight 6, 4 speed manual, no power anything. Great truck.

Still, I lust after another 70 Formula 400 but they are so rare.

 

Having ridden in a Firebird from that era, I assume you mean that it intent on was trying to kill you by deceiving you that you'd make it through a tight corner at speed? Because the one I rode in handled like an American car from the 70's, where the steering inputs are considered 'suggestions' rather than 'commands'

 

My second car was a '78 Trans Am, which had basically the same suspension as the '76 Formula cars, and it handled very well for a street car. I know everyone thinks all cars of that era were terrible - and the fit and finish sure was - but it was very easy to toss around and drive hard at high speeds. The brakes were fair, but manageable. I later added a significantly stronger 400 motor and this only made it better. The extra power made it easy to kick the back end out when needed/wanted. For a live rear axle and steering box set-up, it really did handle well.

 

Shrug. Maybe it's because I grew up with more modern cars and my grading scale is different, but nothing I've ridden in from before the mid-80's handled corners in a way that I'd call "good"
Reportedly Corvettes from that vintage were a cut above the standard plow machine, but I've never been in one newer than '73-ish

 

That could be it. I've owned several performance cars from the 90's through my current 2015 S60R - all purchased new, and including RWD, FWD, and three AWD cars. They definitely all handle differently, but not necessarily better than one another. Also consider the age of the wearable parts. My '78 was only seven years old when I bought it, and I replaced many of the bushings and other front end parts right away. At seven years most of the rubber was already half-way shot.

My '68 Firebird handles pretty well too after upgrading to urethane bushings, some stiffer rear springs, new Moog factory replacement front springs, and some altered geometry ball joints and tie rod ends. It also has sub-frame connecters welded in. It definitely has a limit, but it's very easy to feel when you are getting close to it.

For the record, I drove my buddy's '68 and '74 Corvette's all the time back in the 80's, and neither was as good as the TA.

 

Lotus 7. (Well, any Lotus.) Probably a few thousand other English and European cars too. My MGBs had perfect 50/50 F/R weight distribution, and the entire engine sat behind the front axle which gave it fabulous polar moment of inertia besides. Oh and no power so you pretty much had to get it done in the corners.

Also Ford Cobra. 289 in particular. Properly optioned Vettes.

 

No, it cornered far better in fact than the 2014 Mazda 3 GT model I had for a few years.

One finger on thw wheel, do a 90 degree right turn at 30mph, no issue, no lean, no tire screeching. The power steering was like butter, so easy to turn that wheel.

It was wide and very low center of gravity, and wide Goodrich Radial tires helped a lot with that.

In 46 years of driving, still the best cornering car I have ever driven. That was also my full time daily driver for 10 years. By the way, zero accidents in my lifetime, and not a single speeding ticket. Neve owned a radar detector either.

 

I have a Johnny lightning of this thing

 

Isn't that James Garner? I like how that chevy has the pocket cut into the bed side to step on . cool...

 

Yep that was him, I thought that was neat too.

 

Nice ride.....
Here's mine......Last of the Breed 02 WS6 Triple black, 6 speed

 

Always liked those, and have a soft spot for the black convertibles after one just like it saved my ass. My buddy and I were on the Hot Rod Power Tour in 2003. It was the shakedown run for the '68 after it's first refresh. I ran out of time to mess with the rear end, so we rolled with the new 428 and Tremec in front of a questionable 10-bolt rear end. While racing down the highway with a Roadrunner between Nashville and Memphis the rear end let go and the passenger-side axle started coming out of the housing. As soon as the splines left the differential I had no drive. It was like the clutch was slipping. Anyway, we were lucky to be near an off-ramp with the necessary momentum to get off the highway. The problem was that as we coasted to a stop at the top of the ramp we realized that we were now behind a bunch of trees, and nobody from the tour could see that we were in need of help. Then the black WS6 rolled up behind us. He was following and saw us break, so he exited to see if we were okay. We weren't, and the car was going nowhere on it's own. Just then we saw a truck pulling an empty car trailer getting ready to go down the on-ramp and back to the interstate. I yelled to the guy in the WS6 to go get him, and he took off quicker than hell and caught the truck before they merged back into traffic. He blew through the intersection and nearly got airborne in the process - the off-ramp was uphill and the on-ramp was down. Truly a heroic piece of driving. He then blocked the intersection while the truck - owned by an AC installation company from El Paso who had a '69 Camaro on the tour as a marketing tool - backed trough and down to me. They loaded me up and took me to the next stop in Memphis. With the car still on the trailer I put a sign on it asking for help. Within an hour a local guy called my cell and said he could help us if we could get the car to his house. The Auto AC guys left the show and trailered us across town to a quiet suburb. Our savior had a full shop in his garage, complete with black and white checkered floor and a lift. And no shit...he had a 10-bolt BOP F-body rear end core under his back deck. We spent all night with his crew of friends swapping it over, going on parts runs, and getting blind drunk in the process. It was a blast, but by 4 am we were done and hit the hotel for a few hours of sleep. We made the rest of the tour and all the way back to Ohio from Dallas on that rear end, but lots of other stuff happened that I don't want on the internet. Let's just say that you should never take an untested car on a 3000 mile road trip, and you should never go on a 3000 mile road trip with a friend who's divorce was finalized the day before you leave. It was one of the most memorable weeks of my life, but man it was a bloodbath. We are still in touch with our friends in Memphis, and my buddy is now happily remarried and calmed down.

 

Great story.....

 

What's up with the speckles.

 

We even got a picture and paragraph in the post-Power Tour edition of Hot Rod that year. David Freiberger was walking around one of the shows and said he'd heard about us. He took the pic for the magazine and wrote it up...the breakdown and recovery story without the excessive drinking and whoring around parts.

 

Yeah, we know where that kid was conceived.

 

One of my favorite race car stories. In 1971, a man named Herb Adams was a brilliant suspension engineer working for GM. He and a couple of other young engineers wanted to go racing. His wife had a 1964 Pontiac Tempest that she donated to the cause. They de-stroked a 389 to 303 cubic inches to adhere to Trans-Am rules of the time. It’s first race was in Connecticut, and the car, driven by Bob Tullius started near the back of the field. It began to work its way forward, eventually dueling with Mark Donahue for the lead. Head gasket problems caused it to dnf. It raced 5 or 6 more times, finishing in the top 5 three times. Now mind you, this was against factory teams from Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Plymouth, and AMC.

 

Years ago, I had a nice conversation with Herb. Good man