They don’t make them like this anymore

Those among us lucky enough to be around in the 70s when this wonderful car came out drool whenever we think of it.  Imagine getting an automobile from the factory with a 455 cubic inch engine in it!This vehicle kicked butt!  Then if you did some work, like we did to ours, as in having the engine blue released, balanced and a load more, it probably did even better.  Let’s just say it was doing miles better then one h.p. per cubic inch!

This was the era of Smokey and the Bandit movies.  Good ole boy Burt Reynolds drove a black Trans Am in the flick and everybody and his uncle all of a sudden wanted one.  Of course, by that time the ones they were selling were watered down versions with no where near the power of the first ones. 

Since we are not sure of the statute of constraints, let’s just say that any stories are assumed to start’Once on A Time’. 

One of our fave stories is when we were getting onto dawn road late one evening and a Camaro rolled up next to us and started revving his engine, well you can imagine the rest.Here was a poor soul who had not a clue of what was in store.  Since we don’t believe in street racing, it absolutely was a good thing we were both going onto the entrance ramp.  When we were satisfied that no one was on the parkway at that point of night, we let the Beast Out To Play.  We never did see any more then his fading headlights.

One of the funniest moments was when we lived in upstate NY and my man went to the store to choose something up and this man in a Mustang 2 pulled up next to him and my husband had a good time ( hey, we are all entitled infrequently ).  As Chuck tells it : You see at that time a local car dealer was running a TV spot featuring a Mustang two just destroying a Trans Am.  So this gentleman pulls up next to me, gunning his engine for all he is’s worth.  The light changes, he chirps his tires and flashes me a giant smile as he is taking off.  Well, I idle away from the light,give it enough gas in first to pull even with him, then drop the hammer, lighting up both tires, throw second, light them up again and then ease off.  Drive down the line to the store.

When I come out of the store this bloke has finally got there and is waiting for me and says,’but the commercial asserts Mustangs will beat the pants off the Trans Am.’ I terribly blithely answered,’Not this Trans Am!’

They don’t make them like this anymore.  It’s sorrowful when you consider it!  Those among us who lived and got raised in the era of the muscle autos, street rods, Sat. night cruise nights were very,very lucky.  I feel sorry for the youth of today that they missed out on all of this. 

So what has happened to that great 455 Trans Am, unfortunately the cruel upstate NY winters aren’t kind to autos and rust took the Trans Am from us.  However, we did replace it - with a customized 1973 Vette, which we drove cross country to California, but that is a full nother story!

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