It Was One of Those Days - Part 45
My mind was racing, thinking about the freak of a Mustang we had seen a few minutes earlier, guessing what the darn thing had for a motor to sound like it did. My mind told me that it had to be some variation of the Semi-Hemi Boss 429 as I twisted the square key in the ignition, lighting off the GN’s mill.
I’ve been around a few Boss ‘9s - the engine was actually not a great street-strip motor due to the heads and the setup since it was really a NASCAR motor by design. A good tuner could get them to scream but from the factory, the 428 and 429 CJs and SCJs were better choices for the street/strip crowd.
I pulled the transmission into R, backed up carefully to avoid Stacy’s Camaro, snicked the handle into D and begin to roll up to exit the lot...
My mind-trip continued... the cost of a Boss ‘9 was prohibitive to most folks. Dealers actually had a hard time selling them which is hard to believe in this Barrett-Jackson feeding frenzy for old muscle. But, it’s true - dealers had Boss ‘9s actually languish on their lots... Man, if we had only known...
Just as we were about to pull out onto Reynolds, Kelly spoke and broke my stroll down memory lane.
‘Um, Steve? You may want to wait - look at that!’ Brandon was right behind me and I could see that he was leaning out his window, looking and waving at us to look South, the same direction that Kelly was already pointing. Actually, I could hear it before I even saw it... maybe, it would be better to say I felt it.
Sitting at the next light down was some vehicle that had a wicked idle and an extremely loud - but not sharp - exhaust that you felt in your chest. Almost the way a Nitro T/F dragster’s exhaust pounds your soul with each cylinder’s firing. And to its immediate left, in the inside lane, looked like the headlights of the Boss Mustang we had seen just moments earlier.
Or, at least they looked like it. It was hard to tell for sure which car had the louder exhaust but it seemed to be the one nearest the curb.
The air was really cool now and the sound carried easily in the night air... as did the smell of some very exotic race gas, perhaps with some alcohol or other octane inducing concoction. The headlights behind the two cars allowed us to see a faint exhaust plume, the silhouette of the person in the passenger side of the one car was framed by the lights behind as that person leaned out to apparently have some conversation with the driver of the as yet unknown freak.
Kelly touched my hand, her skin warm and soft... ‘Steve - I think that one is a Pontiac, maybe a GTO?’ Her voice trailed off... I know that Kelly has always had a soft spot for a Poncho, especially a Goat. It could be...
Just then, we saw the lights begin to sequence and the passenger of the ‘Mustang?’ was no longer visible.
By now, Stacy and Brandon were back out of the Camaro, Brandon at my door and Stacy next to Kelly’s watching and listening as the two thumpers revved up and moved out, even passersby on the sidewalk stopped and stepped a little further back from the curb. One lady even held her fingers in her ears... Couldn’t say I blamed her.
The ‘Mustang’ and the Pontiac (by now, we could tell it was the body style of a 68-72 GM and Kelly at least ‘wanted’ it to be a GTO) were coming closer. The Pony car was a stick, the other an automatic with a high stall converter.
We watched and listened. Suddenly, all hell broke loose! Both cars, while still in first gear, suddenly lurched and the lights of both shot upwards as the drivers matted the pedals and the tires bit. Both of the freaks easily lifted their front tires a good foot or more off the pavement as we all watched in disbelief!
How in the hell was that possible? The pavement was cold, the air was cool and yet, here we just watched two cars pull their front tires??? If someone had told me that, I would have called them a liar.
But - I just saw it done and there were four of us!
In a split second, both cars were upon us and had backed out of it, the front end coming down hard but solidly. They rolled on by us with the driver of the closest car looking over at us. I did not recognize the driver.
But she was definitely a girl. And it was another Mustang but an older one. This one was a ’67 Shelby with no markings. The only way we could tell (assume?) it was one of Ol’ Shel’s cars was that it had the body work which included the duck tail spoiler, the tail lights, the front end work and the quarter window scoops.
There were no stripes or markings and it had to be a big block. To be honest, we only really glanced at it.
Why? Because when we saw what was in the far lane, we kind of just forgot about the Mustang.
Because it was not a GTO. It wasn’t a Chevelle, nor was it a Buick.
It was an Oldsmobile. Probably one that started life as a Cutlass or 442, perhaps. It was all black - and it did not reflect any light. Looked like it had a matte black paint job.
The mill in that car sounded very, very healthy and we just sat in stony, cold silence as it passed by. Two things caught our attention the most.
One - the odd hood. Instead of the usual twin snorkel set up you would see on Doc Oldsmobile’s W-series, this one had a stock looking hood with a power bulge in the center with an opening at the rear for some sort of ‘Cowl Induction’ effect.
But the other detail that caught our eye was some old but still legible writing in the rear window. We knew then and there that this was not a normal Oldsmobile. It was only a few hand written words but one that anyone familiar with GM’s Oldsmobile division knew meant power.
It simply said, W-30 PROTO’ with this name below it ‘JOHN BELTZ’.
We watched the tail lights move on north on Reynolds... and that was when we saw the next freak’s head lights.
This was turning into a real Woodward Avenue - very, very quickly...
My mind was racing, thinking about the freak of a Mustang we had seen a few minutes earlier, guessing what the darn thing had for a motor to sound like it did. My mind told me that it had to be some variation of the Semi-Hemi Boss 429 as I twisted the square key in the ignition, lighting off the GN’s mill.
I’ve been around a few Boss ‘9s - the engine was actually not a great street-strip motor due to the heads and the setup since it was really a NASCAR motor by design. A good tuner could get them to scream but from the factory, the 428 and 429 CJs and SCJs were better choices for the street/strip crowd.
I pulled the transmission into R, backed up carefully to avoid Stacy’s Camaro, snicked the handle into D and begin to roll up to exit the lot...
My mind-trip continued... the cost of a Boss ‘9 was prohibitive to most folks. Dealers actually had a hard time selling them which is hard to believe in this Barrett-Jackson feeding frenzy for old muscle. But, it’s true - dealers had Boss ‘9s actually languish on their lots... Man, if we had only known...
Just as we were about to pull out onto Reynolds, Kelly spoke and broke my stroll down memory lane.
‘Um, Steve? You may want to wait - look at that!’ Brandon was right behind me and I could see that he was leaning out his window, looking and waving at us to look South, the same direction that Kelly was already pointing. Actually, I could hear it before I even saw it... maybe, it would be better to say I felt it.
Sitting at the next light down was some vehicle that had a wicked idle and an extremely loud - but not sharp - exhaust that you felt in your chest. Almost the way a Nitro T/F dragster’s exhaust pounds your soul with each cylinder’s firing. And to its immediate left, in the inside lane, looked like the headlights of the Boss Mustang we had seen just moments earlier.
Or, at least they looked like it. It was hard to tell for sure which car had the louder exhaust but it seemed to be the one nearest the curb.
The air was really cool now and the sound carried easily in the night air... as did the smell of some very exotic race gas, perhaps with some alcohol or other octane inducing concoction. The headlights behind the two cars allowed us to see a faint exhaust plume, the silhouette of the person in the passenger side of the one car was framed by the lights behind as that person leaned out to apparently have some conversation with the driver of the as yet unknown freak.
Kelly touched my hand, her skin warm and soft... ‘Steve - I think that one is a Pontiac, maybe a GTO?’ Her voice trailed off... I know that Kelly has always had a soft spot for a Poncho, especially a Goat. It could be...
Just then, we saw the lights begin to sequence and the passenger of the ‘Mustang?’ was no longer visible.
By now, Stacy and Brandon were back out of the Camaro, Brandon at my door and Stacy next to Kelly’s watching and listening as the two thumpers revved up and moved out, even passersby on the sidewalk stopped and stepped a little further back from the curb. One lady even held her fingers in her ears... Couldn’t say I blamed her.
The ‘Mustang’ and the Pontiac (by now, we could tell it was the body style of a 68-72 GM and Kelly at least ‘wanted’ it to be a GTO) were coming closer. The Pony car was a stick, the other an automatic with a high stall converter.
We watched and listened. Suddenly, all hell broke loose! Both cars, while still in first gear, suddenly lurched and the lights of both shot upwards as the drivers matted the pedals and the tires bit. Both of the freaks easily lifted their front tires a good foot or more off the pavement as we all watched in disbelief!
How in the hell was that possible? The pavement was cold, the air was cool and yet, here we just watched two cars pull their front tires??? If someone had told me that, I would have called them a liar.
But - I just saw it done and there were four of us!
In a split second, both cars were upon us and had backed out of it, the front end coming down hard but solidly. They rolled on by us with the driver of the closest car looking over at us. I did not recognize the driver.
But she was definitely a girl. And it was another Mustang but an older one. This one was a ’67 Shelby with no markings. The only way we could tell (assume?) it was one of Ol’ Shel’s cars was that it had the body work which included the duck tail spoiler, the tail lights, the front end work and the quarter window scoops.
There were no stripes or markings and it had to be a big block. To be honest, we only really glanced at it.
Why? Because when we saw what was in the far lane, we kind of just forgot about the Mustang.
Because it was not a GTO. It wasn’t a Chevelle, nor was it a Buick.
It was an Oldsmobile. Probably one that started life as a Cutlass or 442, perhaps. It was all black - and it did not reflect any light. Looked like it had a matte black paint job.
The mill in that car sounded very, very healthy and we just sat in stony, cold silence as it passed by. Two things caught our attention the most.
One - the odd hood. Instead of the usual twin snorkel set up you would see on Doc Oldsmobile’s W-series, this one had a stock looking hood with a power bulge in the center with an opening at the rear for some sort of ‘Cowl Induction’ effect.
But the other detail that caught our eye was some old but still legible writing in the rear window. We knew then and there that this was not a normal Oldsmobile. It was only a few hand written words but one that anyone familiar with GM’s Oldsmobile division knew meant power.
It simply said, W-30 PROTO’ with this name below it ‘JOHN BELTZ’.
We watched the tail lights move on north on Reynolds... and that was when we saw the next freak’s head lights.
This was turning into a real Woodward Avenue - very, very quickly...
