Welcome to this week’s installment of our Wednesday meme feature, folks. Links to the “found via” sources will be attached to the specific MiQ’s (Memes in Question) whenever I can remember them, which likely won’t be very often. Only the first two memes will appear above the fold to save on bandwidth usage, since I assume not everybody who shows up at this here websty will want to see all of them. This intro will appear at the top of each week’s Memezapoppin’! post. Enjoy, funny pitcher-lovers.
NOTE: Most of this week’s selection gleaned from that meme-motherlode I mentioned in Monday’s Eyrie post. Watch yourself if you decide to pay a visit over there; it’s definitely one of those deep, deep internet holes that, once you’ve dived in, it’s almost impossible to climb back out of.
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As usual, all good. Well, except that Ford. It’s not a Chevrolet, so it’s a problem car 🙂
Heh. You BASTARD! 😉
Actually, most of those latter-day Mustangs weren’t all that hot looks-wise, especially the 72-73 Mach I’s when they came out. I liked the looks of ’em at the time, mind; my friend John (who I’m still close to) drove me to school every day in his blue and white Mach I my first year of high school, and I thought it was great. Looking back, though, they were a far, far cry from Iacocca’s original Pony car. The ’68 above is gorgeous, even though it’s a Fastback, which I never much cared for back then. Perfect color, too.
My first car was a ’66 Stang which my dad bought for me el-cheapo from the auto-shop teacher at my high school when I turned 16, and that little 289 was a screamin’ demon. Shocked the living hell out of many a 350 Chevy owner drag-racing stoplight-to-stoplight down Franklin Blvd in Gastonia with that thing back in the day, let me tell ya. Every Friday and Saturday night me and my partners Rusty and Jeff Ellis would pile in, crank up the Craig 8-track player (100 watts, with Jensen Triaxial speakers, naturally), head for the Gas-house, and just thrash the everlovin’ blue-eyed HELL out of that poor little car.
The condition laid down by my old man on getting me my first wheels was “you get a speeding ticket, you pay your own insurance from then on.” Didn’t take me very long to make THAT happen, I assure you. If I remember right, I didn’t just get one, I got three in three weeks in my sweet little Mustang. Good times, good times.
“even though it’s a Fastback”
Actually, the only Mustangs I ever sorta* liked were the fastbacks, mainly the Shelby GT350/500’s.
I may have some idea about the speeding ticket bonanaza… Pic attached of my 2nd car, first being a ’63 Impala Super Sport at age 14, pictured was when I was 16. My kids hate me when they are reminded of this…
1969 Z-28, fathom green with green vinyl roof, rally sport package, houndstooth check interior, gauge package, and the Muncie M-22 “Rockcrusher” transmission. Reckon I’d like to have that one back 🙂
*well, they are fords
HAAA! Even better; my first real gf’s dad had a 68 Camaro with the hideaway-headlights, we used to run that thing pretty raggedy. Three-speed stick on the floor, 350 engine, blue and white like John’s Mach I. It would really get up and snort, too, torque for days.
It only just occurred to me that we never ran her ‘Maro against my Mustang. I was fifteen when we started dating (she was 18, a senior to my sophomore), can’t remember if we split up before I turned 16 or not. Must have done, I would’ve relished the chance to humiliate another danged 350. Then again, the Camaro was a lighter-weight car like the Mustang was, driven by a feisty, take-no-shit female who could really drive a stick, and was very aggressive about it too.
Oh, and another funny thing, Barr: I just tried switching from “Text” to “Visual” just for shits and grins, and when I did, “Visual” was completely blank! Switched back to “Text” and all was as it should be again. Odd, ain’t it?
I’ve noticed, as I think Kenny did, that when you create a new comment the “visual” tab work, but if you are replying it doesn’t. Yea, definitely odd…
My friends and I bought an old 59 Chevy with a 409 from the junkyard to take to the dragstrip. It had a 4 speed and plenty of rust, but stayed together for the quarter. I only ran the Z-28 on the dragstrip once, blew the 2nd to 3rd due to excitement, actually shifting from 2nd to neutral 🙂 Of course it wasn’t a drag car anyway, but it was quick. By the time I finished HS it had quite a bit of road course suspension handiwork and another 50-60hp or so. Big motor big torque cars would beat me in a short straight line, but then they would disappear in the mirror.
I’m lucky that I never hurt anyone or myself. By 20 I was racing in the Sports Car Club on the real road courses in a formula car and that took the itch to race on the street down a couple levels.
Just for fun, a pic of the Chevy 348/409 valve covers. Damn, they are beautiful.
Just for you, one of my all-time favorite Beach Boys tunes:
One of my favs as well, Mike. We might have had that on an 8 track, and we might have been playing it real loud at the strip…
A cool musical soundtrack for running the eighth-mile! 😉
Or in our case, the quarter. The tracks we went to were all a quarter. Ware Shoals in South Carolina mainly.
We used to go to Shuffletown and Mooresville a good bit, then later on the band hooked up with Bob Gilbertson’s team and played their party in the pits at the IHRA finals in Rockingham for several years running. Talk about some good times, now!
Never have made it out to zMAX, I hear it’s awesome. Prolly never will now, I guess; just another thing you really can’t do in a friggin’ wheelchair. Le Sigh.
Well heck, we’ve run out of apply buttons…
We would also go to greer, which is now a 1/8 mile track. I *think* it was quarter back in our day, 50 years ago, but maybe it was an eighth and that’s why we usually went to Ware Shoals.
We always wanted to go to the Shuffletown strip but never made it. This was all while we were in high school. I think the old 59 with the 409 was still sitting in my friends barn when he passed away 4 years ago.
I haven’t been to zmax either, hear it’s good.
By the way, what killed the 348/409 was the production cost. The heads were separate left/right castings. The small block 265/283/327/350/400 and big block 396/427/454 had symmetrical heads that would fit either side.
I know hardly anything about Chevy motors, except they used to put the distributor in the most pain in the ass, hard to reach place possible.
The great thing about both the small-block Chevs and the Ford 289s, though, is that you can get a crapton of horsepower out of ’em easily and cheaply. Relatively speaking, of course.
Yea, the dang distributor is a pain in the a$$. Otherwise, very similar except the Chevy makes more power of course 🙂
The nice thing about either brand is the engineering was so good that you could pick up 10-20% just by putting it all together with precision and raising the compression a notch by decking the block or shaving the heads, and adding a little better cam profile. IOW’s, not a lot of $$$ for the at home do it yourself types. Just time mostly.
I’ve spent many a night in the garage fitting parts to perfection.
Yep. Cam, carb, hot ignition, and free-flowing dual exhausts, and before you know it you’re pulling 500hp or more. Not too shabby at all for a streetable ride, a daily-driver even. I know several people who’ve done exactly that, repeatedly.
Inherited Mom’s ’69.
Used to drive it 89 miles to college in Santa Barbara. Made the run in 58 minutes, on average. (There’s only one CHP car from Ventura north on 101, so once you see him giving a ticket anywhere, you’re home free the rest of the way.)
One Sunday afternoon headed back to school, I wanted to see what it would do, so on the stretch between Ventura and Summerland, with no on-ramps for several miles, I let it out.
Had the lap and shoulder belt on, wearing a black motorcycle helmet. (You’d be amazed how many people pull over to the right when they see a car doing 100-plus with a helmeted driver coming up fast in the rear-view. I certainly was.)
The speedo on that thing went to 125, and it was a straight three-speed manual on a bog-standard factory-spec 302 V-8, just like Henry Jr. sold it.
Pedal to the floor, on a long straightaway section with a slight uphill grade, the needle was buried at what would have been about 135MPH. And the car was still accelerating! As the light standards whizzed past at a prodigious rate, doing over two miles/minute, I momentarily contemplated that if, say, a truck or car changed lanes a mile ahead, I’d have about 15 seconds to react decisively before the plot merged. And if a tire blew out, well…
So, having answered my question, I let off the gas, and let momentum and ground resistance take the speedo back down to about 70.
Damnedest thing about speed perception: after doing 130-plus, even for just a minute or two, a paltry 70MPH felt like I was in plodding along in second gear. Really.
Car was purring like a kitten before and after.
Handled like a truck (no power anything), but ran like a rocket on rails.
You can keep your Chevies.
“You can keep your Chevies.” We will, thanks 🙂
The car pictured in my comment above would do 140+ straight from the factory, verified, before we ran out of room. After a few mods it was 150+, verified*. A bit faster than the average ford and with only 302 Cubic inches.
Originally it was pretty loose at that speed, not enough aero downforce to keep stability. After a few suspension mods, and an increase in the effectiveness of the front spoiler she was quite comfortable.
Never lost to a ford, including the boss 429 and 302.
*10 more mph at that speed is a lot, takes a substantial increase in power