Back around 1982 I was 19 and lived in Spokane Washington (Ok, I'm old!). I had just purchased my dream car, a used and abused but straight and drivable 67 GTX. It was special because it was an original Hemi automatic car. The original Hemi had been yanked years prior and was now resting comfortably at the bottom of the Columbia River (the flat bottom drag boat it was installed in blew over and sank, boat was named "The Black *****" or something similar) The new engine was a warmed over 440 with a torker, big thermo quad carb,mild cam, and Black Jack headers (we'll get back to the headers later). The rear was a 3:91 sure grip and the 727 had a shift kit but was getting tired. The car was originally silver but was now red with a black interior and actually looked pretty nice, it was finished off with a full set of Cooper bias-ply 60 series tires mounted on American "Hurricane" aluminum wheels (Dukes of Hazard style rims). It looked stock with the exception of the wheels and tires and still wore its original "Hemi" fender and deck lid emblems.
In Spokane we cruised the main drag (Riverside Drive) on Friday & Saturday nights looking for girls and trouble (finding either never seemed to be a problem
One Friday night I loaded the car up with my younger brother and 2 of his buddies and headed down to Riverside for some fun. We had made a few laps and noticed a nasty looking Trans Am pull up beside us, It was black with dual quads and a tunnel ram poking up through the hood and had huge 50 series tires out back mounted on Chrome 5 spoke Crager wheels, I think it was a 1977 or 1978 model.
Anyway, the car sounded REALLY mean, it had headers and probably glass pack mufflers by the sound of things, the gear drive was whining like a blower. The driver was looking over at my brother (sitting in the passenger seat) with this big smug grin on his face. Then he shouts "What is it a Plymouth? My brother says yep! Then the looks my car over noticing the Hemi emblems and in the worst pronunciation of the word "Hemi" you've ever heard the guy asks, "What's a "He MY" ? My bro says well lets run em' and you'll find out! ....................Ok, time out.......... flash back to my headers, cheap ass Black Jacks, well they had MAJOR leaks! Like a couple small holes and cracks that crackled and popped at uneven intervals, they made the engine sound sick and out of tune BIG TIME........ BUT, regardless the engine still ran plenty strong. Then the guy thinking he'd found a sucker says he wouldn’t race for less than $50.00 (which was every cent the 4 of us had combined) so we said, Ok, let's go! We drove off to a remote side street the guy had staked out for just an encounter, it happened to be HIS neighborhood and about 20 of his friends showed up and volunteered to hold the money while we ran (we felt a bit out numbered to say the least!) My brother and his buddies all piled out of the car and stood at the end of the shut down area with his mob while we drove to the opposite end to get started, one of his friends agreed to start us with a flashlight. Now, the funny part, Before we went down to start the race the T/A driver whips his car into a well lit intersection and does a HUGE smokey burnout and spins a couple big donuts to basically flex his engines muscle, I just cruised down to the start and waited for his clown antics to stop and for him to line up. In a twist of fate a light drizzle had just started coming down, it was just enough to make the street a little damp and that was just what I needed to beat this guy. We lined up and watched for the flashlight.......Blink! There it was and we were off.......Er, actually I was off, he was sitting and spinning while my snap, crackle, pop, holy headered, trans slipping, 440 hooked and went...........I blew his doors off so badly that I was stopped by the time he came to the finish! He was PISSED and insisted we ran again, double or nothing, guess what, I beat him even worse the second time! Turns out he couldn't hook up at all, the wet pavement had to contribute and truth be told he seemed to have plenty of engine to beat me, my slipping transmission actually helped me hook up, and as we all know, on the street he who hooks first wins and that's what happened.......I won, and I won BIG! After an uneasy confrontation with his mob we got our money and left, but not before I said, "That's what a "He My" is! Big grin on my smart-ass face (He didn't know it wasn't a Hemi and I didn't tell) ..........I loved that old 67 GTX, lots of good memories. I was young and broke eventually leading to it's sale ( for $1,000.00!) But the neat part? I was contacted by the cars original owner 16 years later and together we tracked it down in Canada, it had been through 16 owners and was restored back to original, silver paint with a Hemi etc. he bought it back and still has it today (he lives in central California) we remain friends to this day. This pic is a recent one of the same car.
