Cars, motorcycles, and other things that move

armyadarkness

Royal Corn
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Atlantic City
Here's my first car. Same model, year, color as this one (but factory hubcaps). It had a 283 with a Powerglide. It was big, slow, and could carry about 46 people.

View attachment 277
Unfortunately I don't have pictures, but I had a 65 Impala Super Sport convertible, 327/ 350 HP, M22 rock crusher, 12 bolt.

One night my drummer and I were rebuilding an engine in the wee hours of the night, and we ran out of smokes. I lived on a barrier island so we had to go over to the mainland to buy them. Running over the bridge, a vette came up on us and a serious race ensued! We we neck and neck as we came upon the store we were heading to for smokes... I had to make a hard decision, keep racing, or buy smokes and get back to work.

For reasons unknown, I decided to be responsible (the condition has not since repeated). Ran in, got the smokes, went to pull out of the parking lot and the entire rear rolled out of the car. Convertible frame has rusted to nothing. Sad to see such a gorgeous car ruined, happy my 19-year-old self didn't keep racing that night.
 

Equill

Pepper Corn
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304
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83
Location
Madrid
Stingrays... man, I always used to want one of those. I still thing they look utterly gorgeous.
Saw one on the road recently. Gorgeous example, and the poor driver was wrapped up in what looked like every bit of warm clothing he owns. AFAICT, they're made for California weather, and this place is either too hot or too cold. If I want that experience, I have two motorbikes :)

Speaking of bikes, I still miss the good parts about riding a Katana 750:
1984_GSX750S_Katana_520.jpg
Had both the 1984 and 1987 versions (the '84 was silver/grey), one in NZ and one in Australia. For performance, they can't hold a candle to modern bikes, but that thing made a surprisingly good touring bike.
I don't miss the flakey headlamp motor, the stupidly skinny (by modern standards) tyres, the single-piston brakes, the well-intentioned anti-brake-dive forks, the...

My wife actually reminded me recently that I'd said something about hunting down a third one if I ever had the money, time and workshop space for it. That'd be the same one who offered to cancel the wedding to pay for overhauling the last Kat, because she knows how much I loved that thing.
A small part of me really wants to. It's drowned out by the part that says I already have two bikes to maintain, and that it's been so long I'd pretty much have to re-learn everything I knew about working on engines, and that's time I'm just not willing to take away from the other things I'm working on.
So I have lots of happy memories of them. Even the time my insane ex-girlfriend started rabbit-punching me in the kidneys because of the way I took a corkscrew corner near her home-town :)
 
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