Driving cross country to California
Those among us lucky enough to be around in the 70s when this fantastic automobile came out drool whenever we consider it. Imagine getting a vehicle from the factory with a 455 cubic inch engine in it!This car kicked butt! Then if you probably did some work, like we did to ours, as in having the engine blue outlined, balanced and a ton more, it did even better. Let’s just say it was doing much better then one hp per cubic inch!
This was the era of Smokey and the Bandit movies. Good ole boy Burt Reynolds drove a black Trans Am in the film and everybody and his uncle all of a sudden wanted one. Naturally, by that time the ones they were selling were watered down versions with no where close to the power of the first ones.
Since we’re not sure of the statute of restrictions, let’s just say that any stories are thought to start’Once upon A Time’.
One of our fave stories is when we were getting onto sunrise road late one evening and a Camaro rolled up next to us and started revving his engine, well you can imagine the rest.Here was a poor soul who had not a clue of what was in store. Since we don’t believe in street racing, it definitely was a good thing we were both going onto the entrance ramp. Once we were satisfied that no one was on the parkway at that point of night, we let the Beast Out To Play. We never did see any more then his fading headlights.
One of the funniest moments was when we lived in upstate NY and my husband went to the store to pick something up and this man in a Mustang 2 pulled up next to him and my man had a good time ( hey, we are all titled sometimes ). As Chuck tells it : You see at that point a local car dealer was running a television spot featuring a Mustang 2 just destroying a Trans Am. So this gentleman pulls up next to me, gunning his engine for all he’s's worth. The light changes, he chirps his tires and flashes me an enormous grin as he’s taking off. Well, I idle away from the light,give it sufficient gas in first to tug even with him, then drop the hammer, lighting up both tires, throw second, light them up again and then ease off. Drive down the line to the store.
When I come out of the store this man has finally got there and is waiting for me and says,’but the commercial claims Mustangs will beat the pants off the Trans Am.’ I extraordinarily blithely responded,’Not this Trans Am!’
They don’t make them like this anymore. It’s downcast when you concentrate on it! Those of us who lived and grew up in the age of the muscle cars, street rods, Sat. night cruise nights were very,very lucky. I feel sorry for the youth of today that they missed out on all of this.
So what has happened to that great 455 Trans Am, sadly the oppressive upstate NY winters are not kind to automobiles and rust took the Trans Am from us. However, we probably did replace it – with a customised 1973 Vette, which we drove cross country to California, but that is a full nother story!
Do you know which cars are super fast and are among the fastest cars in the world? Visit thesupercars.org to view all the fast and exotic cars. Also take a look at Pontiac Trans Am auctions.