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You have to remember, or be aware of exactly what was happening in cars in 1965 before you can understand the story I'm about to tell you.
Up to that point, about the snazziest car on the road was of course the Corvette Stingray. The only problem with that was, that almost no one could really afford to buy one. At least no one I
knew directly.
The car that had the greatest impact at the time was the Ford Mustang.
This was a sharp looking car which set the pace for others to follow, the Camaro, Firebird and countless other pony cars. It was more of a sporty and classy car, suitable for women, executives, and people less interested in performance than in classic good looks. And a big thing here was, it was affordable.
Introduced in the middle of 1964, it quickly became one of the fastest selling cars of all-time. Okay, so what does this have to do with the story? My oldest brother was 18 at the time.
Having banged around in my Mom's car since getting his license, he finally found himself in a position to buy a new car one day. In the Fall of 1965 he bought a 1966 Mustang fast back 2 plus 2. It was, I
thought the "coolest car" I had ever seen. I could see myself in this car!
In the spring of 1966 something changed.
One Sunday morning as I went out to play, I saw a strange new car in the driveway. It was fairly large, plain looking, ... like nothing I'd ever seen. Light green with a black top that was vinyl. I thought maybe someone had slept over and this was their car. But I noticed something was missing, the Mustang. Back in the house my brother was having breakfast. That's when he told me he had swapped the Mustang for this car,
it was called a GTO.
I was horrified. He assured me was it was a cool car, but I had hard time believing him. "What made it so special?", I wondered. He told me that this car had beaten every car including the Mustang on the night shift where he worked. That it was fast!! And it was. But there was still no connection between this car and me. It was only sometime later that it happened.
I remember it was spring, it was warm, and it was a
weekend. My friend who lived behind us and was about five years older, had just gotten a brand new Mustang Mach I. The newest breed of Mustang. So it must have been late 1968 or early 1969. He
was struggling to learn the fine art of power shifting his new car. My oldest brother happened to be in the area that day and admired his new car. My
friend asked my brother about the art of power shifting since the GTO also had a stick shift. Rather than explain, we all climbed into the GTO
and went for a ride. With four of us in the car he pulled the goat onto the main road, stopped dead in his tracks, then punched through four gears.
The sound was incredible and the force pushed me back in my seat. The shifts sounded like gunshots and by the time we reached the under pass
we were really moving. Our jaws dropped to the floor, we were impressed.
After that my friend's new Mustang, cool as it looked was never as impressive.
One day, later that summer, my brother asked me
to take a ride with him. I remembered it was bright and sunny, and a weekend... probably Sunday. Seems a lot of good things happened on Sundays.
"Where were we going?", I wondered. He pulled into the high school parking lot, then stopped the car. "Wanna drive?" he asked. "Sure!" I
said. Now, even today I remember, getting out of the car and walking around it, passing him on the way and thinking, "I don't know how to drive
a stick! or anything else for that matter.......!" When I slid into that bucket seat for the first time, I was hooked. I think I got it all the way up to 2nd
gear before I ran out out of parking lot. It was the first car I ever drove.
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