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Post by chevypower on Feb 28, 2015 15:28:34 GMT -6
My wife's first car was a totally stripped down Opel Cadet. It had a radio. The coolest thing about it was it was a manuel shift. Once Mom learned how to drive it, she was He!! on wheels. One time, at a local park, she drove it across a pedestrian bridge by accident. Made it across with an inch to spare on each side. LOL! But the squids came and we needed a car w/ AC. *sigh* My Brother had an Opal GT pretty nice car (5) speed also. they are two different cars though right dd?
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Post by chevypower on Feb 28, 2015 15:30:41 GMT -6
LOL Dave, that's a good story. A friend of mine had an Opel Kadett here in town. I thought MAYBE it may have been your Wife's, but I am pretty sure She had an auto in Her's. The Opel GT was a pretty cool car too. Looked a little like a cross between a Kharmin Ghia and a smaller scale Jaguar XKE....or maybe an old 240z if you squinted right. My Wife had to learn to drive when She moved here. I taught her on a stick. It CAN be a bit frustrating at first, but very gratifying once you learn. We both prefer a Stick. Just fewer of them out there all the time. I am sure with all the advances, and so few people really wanting them, they will completely go away soon. Perhaps with the auto-pilot and antonymous cars people won't even learn to drive at all. SCARY.... The opal Gt had always looked like a small Corvette I always thought.
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Post by dumdave on Mar 1, 2015 11:16:10 GMT -6
My wife's first car was a totally stripped down Opel Cadet. It had a radio. The coolest thing about it was it was a manuel shift. Once Mom learned how to drive it, she was He!! on wheels. One time, at a local park, she drove it across a pedestrian bridge by accident. Made it across with an inch to spare on each side. LOL! But the squids came and we needed a car w/ AC. *sigh* My Brother had an Opal GT pretty nice car (5) speed also. they are two different cars though right dd? My wifs's car was really stripped down. No GT to it. I think it was a probably a 4 speed tranny at most. It did have a little more power than a .....VW bug. Kinda one step lower than MnM's Tracker, which I have had the PLEASURE of riding in. That lady knows how to drive her car! It was fun.
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Post by ~MnM~ on Mar 2, 2015 1:32:09 GMT -6
I want more details about that sweet red T-Bird. Funny about not finding the wiper button M&M. We kind of take for granted most of the controls are pretty universal now. Back then, not quite so much. I BET, I don't remember for certain, but I BET it was on a stalk by the steering wheel. Sort of where we look for them now. Back then a lot of American cars still had them up on the dash somewhere on a knob. My Dad has always had some unusual cars. He drove a couple of Saab's back in the day and they had some unusual places for controls. They marched to the beat of their own drummer back then. I think the ignition was down on the 'transmission tunnel', like in the lower console between the seats where you would find the parking brake on most economy cars. (I think every teenager should have free reign with an empty icy parking lot and a beater RWD cars with bald tires, learning skid control of course, not just because it's more fun than any carnival ride) I used to terrorize the gravel road going South in back of Woodland going home once in a while. I would try to mimic those dirt track drivers I had watched at Fairbury all the time and power slide through those 2 90 degree corners. The ditches were just about non-existent, so why not? Come to think of it, that old Bronco had MANUAL steering as well as manual transmission.....whooweeeee......hot rod...... Well about that red T-Bird...... One of my friends had just gotten her drivers license, and her parents wouldn't let her have their car to drive, and my parents had some meeting that night. She came over, and I said that I knew where the keys were for this car. She ended up pulling it out of the long driveway ok, and we drove that down the street...she was ALL over the road! About a block and a half away I told her to GET out and move that I had to drive, since if anything happened to that car it'd be my BUTT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO power steering in that car is why she was having such a hard time. I took over, and ME without any legal license drove that car clear out to Woody's to meet up with friends of ours. We thought we were sooooooooooo cool though pulling in there with that Thunderbird, lol. I then drove that back home, parked it exactly back where it had been without a glitch. A couple of weeks went by and I overheard my parents discussing the matter in whether to re-new the plates on that car, or not. So...here the plates were expired, and I drove that without a license too. Every time I see the movie "Sixteen Candles" I think of that...when he pulls up in front of his geek friends house in that Rolls Royce...hahaha!!! Now I told my sister about this...and she then proceeds to tell me that her and her boyfriend at the time / husband for many years did the same thing one night! They took for a joyride another Thunderbird (forget what year) but it was a convertible with a hardtop and had two porthole windows on each side, a two seater............................... hahahahahah!!!! OHHHH too funny.................. M
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Post by ~MnM~ on Mar 2, 2015 1:46:41 GMT -6
My Brother had an Opal GT pretty nice car (5) speed also. they are two different cars though right dd? My wifs's car was really stripped down. No GT to it. I think it was a probably a 4 speed tranny at most. It did have a little more power than a .....VW bug. Kinda one step lower than MnM's Tracker, which I have had the PLEASURE of riding in. That lady knows how to drive her car! It was fun. Awww DD that was such a great time though wasn't it, and such a great night !!! You betcha...I can drive that stick....................hhahahaha!!! In all seriousness....it is beneficial for everyone to know how to drive both! I followed through with that history, and also taught lil M how to drive a stick, as did my dad with all three of us kids. My little peanut M is going to be 10, and hopefully I will still have my Tracker! Yes I will teach her how to drive that. I will probably still have that car, hopefully lol. Although that lil turd took me on a ride of my life down their gravel road in their Ranger, I was screaming !!! That kid can drive that like nobody's business, and she also had her own four wheeler too. AND before any of you say or think...she has been trained in the utmost of safety, or she wouldn't be driving then at all !! M
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Post by chevypower on Mar 2, 2015 12:24:52 GMT -6
lol My 280zx When I was racing it, I would come out of 1st gears hitting 2nd gear sideways at 70 mph and had total control, yes experience is everything.
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Post by dumdave on Mar 3, 2015 11:31:48 GMT -6
My parents were out of town and I had a double date w/ some friends to see a Cubs game. They had a Buick. I got the keys to my Mom's Caddy DeVille and drove it to the game. Parked under the "L". I was scared to death and could hardly watch the game. When we got back, I went to reset the trip odometer....the knob broke and came off in my hands! BUSTED..... (I got another, in a long series of "talks", w/ my parents.)
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Post by OutlawwithaSnipeSniper on Mar 4, 2015 7:37:23 GMT -6
lol My 280zx When I was racing it, I would come out of 1st gears hitting 2nd gear sideways at 70 mph and had total control, yes experience is everything. Pretty fast for a Z car............ Good thing you never had some real power....... Big blocks and 4 speeds separated the men from the boys.
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Post by dumdave on Mar 4, 2015 11:14:15 GMT -6
I lived near The Devils Bowl. Very popular 1/2 mile dirt track. World of Outlaws. Most of the local stocks were Cameros w/ 350 short block engines.
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Post by OutlawwithaSnipeSniper on Mar 4, 2015 12:26:51 GMT -6
LOL Sniper, I drove a big block Corvette in Grand Turismo.(just a video game folks) They handle like pigs but go like scat. As often as not a small block might give you better balance. You certainly have to have the skills to drive the beasts. The Z cars did have pretty good balance, good bang for the buck with the earlier ones. And in the dark ages of the mid 70's they were probably as strong as any of our pollution controlled Detroit cars were. It was rough times for Detroit back then. Most Muscle car guys want stuff from 70' or before, and by 75 or so the stock stuff was really pretty bad and remained so until the mid 80's. I think even V-8 small block Chevys were only putting out maybe 150 hp. Maybe as high as 200, but I doubt it. GM was bringing out things like the Vega, motor was junk by 50,000 miles, the Diesel that was a fiasco, the V8-6-4 Caddy. The Citation and it's siblings.(I think it had the distinction of the most recalled car in history). The Cadillac Cimaron(rebadged Cavalier). It was dark days. Depends, we scrapped more muscle cars than most ever owned. Mid to late 70's it very rarely paid to put an engine in one, engines were a buck a cube at the yard, and many times you could buy another whole musclecar for that price. Yea, we ventilated a few...... As for the Vega, Ed Cole had a beautiful little cast iron OHV 4 cylinder all ready to hit production when the marketers decided it needed more pizazz. The rest is history, though it did make for some REALLY cool, cheap iron for V-8 conversions. The Motion mount kit was affordable, and we figured out how to stuff a 12 bolt under them. Those things ran HARD with a decent small block. I agree though, for the times, the Z-cars were about as fast as any other made...... they just seemed like granny cars to those of us raised on 396-375 Hp BBC's and a 4 speed......
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Post by chevypower on Mar 4, 2015 13:09:35 GMT -6
lol My 280zx When I was racing it, I would come out of 1st gears hitting 2nd gear sideways at 70 mph and had total control, yes experience is everything. Pretty fast for a Z car............ Good thing you never had some real power....... Big blocks and 4 speeds separated the men from the boys. If you been in one then you know it's not all about horse power sniper, the cars is geared for it.
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Post by chevypower on Mar 4, 2015 13:14:46 GMT -6
lol My 280zx When I was racing it, I would come out of 1st gears hitting 2nd gear sideways at 70 mph and had total control, yes experience is everything. I know it's fun CP, but unless you are racing on dirt, ice or maybe gravel is sideways through a corner the fastest way around the track? that was only a quarter mile race off the side with friends, never had traction bars as needed for traction. I remember the car that did beat me was a 3000 gt twin turbo.......boy was that car a rocket lol That GT was all wheel drive and total traction. and about corners MnM, no corners lol just a quick quarter mile run. Though the zs were made for high speed cornering, that is why they were so low too the ground.
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Post by dumdave on Mar 4, 2015 13:46:35 GMT -6
For that 1/4 mile straight run, all you need is a big a$$ engine and posi-traction. Did anyone take a bit of air out of the back tires to get a good start?
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Post by OutlawwithaSnipeSniper on Mar 4, 2015 14:37:53 GMT -6
For that 1/4 mile straight run, all you need is a big a$$ engine and posi-traction. Did anyone take a bit of air out of the back tires to get a good start? Helped a bunch to be able to walk it out of the hole........ That's where a good stick guy shone. Too bad it was all over by about 79...... Seemed like kids wanted Jap cars and dope then.
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