TurboMinivan
Still plays with cars
- Location
- Lehi, UT
On a different forum that I visit, somebody started a thread like this. The idea is for us to share some of our favorite car experiences from our lives. That forum doesn't get much traffic, so I thought I'd bring this up here (I hope it hasn't been done before). Besides, I'm curious about what stories some of you might have to share. Before anybody asks, let's avoid the obvious play-by-play rundowns of any date night physical encounters in our vehicles; instead, let's try to focus on family-friendly stories about the cars (or 4x4s) themselves. 
I'm sure there are many things I could share here. This is what I posted in the other forum:
I grew up in a tiny rural farm town in Ohio. Surrounded by fields and bordered to the rear by railroad tracks, our house was one in a line of 10 homes. Ours was the first one, on the right in this modern-day aerial photo:
In the fourth house (three to the left of us) lived Lou and his wife. They didn't have any kids, so I never went to their home and knew almost nothing about them. What I did know was that Lou was a car guy. See that shop out in his back yard? It housed his pride and joy, a bright red Chevelle SS. I was far too young to know--or even care--what model year it was; all I knew is that it was loud, had a 4-speed manual transmission, and it must have been really fast. (It was probably a '70 or '71, and it had to be a big block.) Far from a daily driver, the Chevelle seemed to only come out on rare, special occasions; I would only get a few glimpses of it each year.
How did I know it was a four speed? One summer day I was down the road playing with some friends--we were gathered at house #9 in the photo. As luck would have it, we were all out in the front yard when we noticed Lou driving the Chevelle down the road--a rare sight. He got to the end of the street, stopped for the stop sign, did a u-turn in the intersection to point back toward his home, and then came to a full stop right there just barely out of the intersection. Like a herd of deer sensing imminent danger, we all dropped what we were doing and froze, watching him intently. Lou revved the engine loudly a few times, floored it, then popped the clutch.
You all need to understand: this was a clear turning point for me. This was a milestone moment in my life, even though I didn't realize it at the time. In that instant when Lou dropped the clutch, my outlook on what I thought about cars--what I liked about them, what I thought was possible in them, what I wanted from one--changed forever.
This was also the moment in life when I learned what 'posi' meant, because Lou's Chevelle began smoking both tires and laying down a pair of beautiful dark black stripes all through first gear. He then lifted, quickly changed gears, and when he dropped the clutch the smoke show continued throughout second gear. He shifted again and, all through third, it was more smoke. It was while in third gear that Lou passed us, tires still ablaze, our jaws uniformly agape. Unbelievably, he shifted into fourth gear and still continued to lay two stripes for a ways down the road before either he let out of it or else his speed finally allowed the rear tires to get some traction.
As a group, we were all in awe. None of us had ever seen Lou so much as chirp a tire in his Chevelle, and now out of the blue he had laid it all on the table, showing us just what his car was capable of doing. Those long, twin stripes remained on the road for years afterward, the three short but distinct gaps being reminders of his manual transmission gear changes. On that day, Lou's Chevelle instantly gained legendary status in our community. It didn't matter what your dad drove or who thought they had a fast car; nobody else could replicate such an over-the-top feat and, therefore, nobody could touch Lou's Chevelle.
Was his car heavily modified? I have no idea. Nearly 35 years have passed since then. But to this day, whenever I hear the Beach Boys sing about "gettin' rubber in all four gears," there is only one car that comes to my mind, and it ain't a Little Deuce Coupe--it's Lou's red Chevelle.
I'm sure there are many things I could share here. This is what I posted in the other forum:
I grew up in a tiny rural farm town in Ohio. Surrounded by fields and bordered to the rear by railroad tracks, our house was one in a line of 10 homes. Ours was the first one, on the right in this modern-day aerial photo:
In the fourth house (three to the left of us) lived Lou and his wife. They didn't have any kids, so I never went to their home and knew almost nothing about them. What I did know was that Lou was a car guy. See that shop out in his back yard? It housed his pride and joy, a bright red Chevelle SS. I was far too young to know--or even care--what model year it was; all I knew is that it was loud, had a 4-speed manual transmission, and it must have been really fast. (It was probably a '70 or '71, and it had to be a big block.) Far from a daily driver, the Chevelle seemed to only come out on rare, special occasions; I would only get a few glimpses of it each year.
How did I know it was a four speed? One summer day I was down the road playing with some friends--we were gathered at house #9 in the photo. As luck would have it, we were all out in the front yard when we noticed Lou driving the Chevelle down the road--a rare sight. He got to the end of the street, stopped for the stop sign, did a u-turn in the intersection to point back toward his home, and then came to a full stop right there just barely out of the intersection. Like a herd of deer sensing imminent danger, we all dropped what we were doing and froze, watching him intently. Lou revved the engine loudly a few times, floored it, then popped the clutch.
You all need to understand: this was a clear turning point for me. This was a milestone moment in my life, even though I didn't realize it at the time. In that instant when Lou dropped the clutch, my outlook on what I thought about cars--what I liked about them, what I thought was possible in them, what I wanted from one--changed forever.
This was also the moment in life when I learned what 'posi' meant, because Lou's Chevelle began smoking both tires and laying down a pair of beautiful dark black stripes all through first gear. He then lifted, quickly changed gears, and when he dropped the clutch the smoke show continued throughout second gear. He shifted again and, all through third, it was more smoke. It was while in third gear that Lou passed us, tires still ablaze, our jaws uniformly agape. Unbelievably, he shifted into fourth gear and still continued to lay two stripes for a ways down the road before either he let out of it or else his speed finally allowed the rear tires to get some traction.
As a group, we were all in awe. None of us had ever seen Lou so much as chirp a tire in his Chevelle, and now out of the blue he had laid it all on the table, showing us just what his car was capable of doing. Those long, twin stripes remained on the road for years afterward, the three short but distinct gaps being reminders of his manual transmission gear changes. On that day, Lou's Chevelle instantly gained legendary status in our community. It didn't matter what your dad drove or who thought they had a fast car; nobody else could replicate such an over-the-top feat and, therefore, nobody could touch Lou's Chevelle.
Was his car heavily modified? I have no idea. Nearly 35 years have passed since then. But to this day, whenever I hear the Beach Boys sing about "gettin' rubber in all four gears," there is only one car that comes to my mind, and it ain't a Little Deuce Coupe--it's Lou's red Chevelle.
