Ok kiddies. Gather around Grandpa Kidd and listen to this story! OK seriously, due to nature of this thread, I'll tell ya a true story that happened 36 years ago. I was 17 when I ordered a new TX9 71 Cuda (you do the math calculating my age!). Not having much money, I ordered the baseline model with only a few options. The upgrades were 3.91 rear gears, an AM/FM stereo and a ralley dash. No road/ralley wheels, no console for the pistol grip; manual steering, brakes and windows. The base engine was an N code 383. The car cost $3,579.00. I forget what the breakdown was on the few options that were ordered. The car was ordered in Oct of 1970 and arrived at Ridgewood Plymouth (in Queens NY) in November. I picked it up at night and was it ever mean looking under the dealer lights! I drove that car every chance I could.

The 70’s were a great time to own a musclecar. Almost every guy I knew had one. We'd work on them in yards, single car garages and out in the streets. Every car had some mods; at least headers, intakes and carbs. No one went in for pretty looks. Nice rims were as far as cosmetics went. At night we'd cruise the boulevards looking for girls, cars to race and places to eat (but not in that order). At selected meeting places the heavy hitters (as today) were the blown cars, hemis and of course the ever popular tunnel rammed cars. Some that immediately come to mind were a rat powered GTO, a 800 hp race fuel burning Camaro and one badass Max wedge Fury. Names like Dino the Greek, Vinny from Atlantic Speed and the boys from S&k Speed were some of the heavy hitters I remember. There was only one Hemi powered car that we would see on a frequent basis and this was in NYC! They were rare even back then! Street racing happened every weekend at Connecting highway or Crossbay Blvd. It usually occurred after midnight. On the Connecting hwy, we had cars block the lanes at the start and finish so the racing could go on uninterrupted. Much cash was exchanged at this place. The blvd racing was just between two measured points. I raced a 70 Chevelle there, in what would be my closest and maybe last street race. I beat him by a side marker length. Afterward, winners, losers and followers would all go to a pizza joint and BS. They were great times. One of my favorite memories was raising some money to buy gas as I was running on fumes. We scraped up 75 cents and stopped at a Sunoco. It got us a little over 2 gallons of 260 (about 104 octane) and we were on our way again!
With all the money I was putting into go fast parts, I became nervous about theft. My theft deterrent? I pulled the Holley carb off the motor at night and brought it into my apartment with me! I got used to the stench of gasoline pretty quickly! My best score happened by fate. I was at a stop light one day and up next to me pulls another Cuda. The car itself was in rough shape, but it had a shaker hood with a piece of flat aluminum stock covering the hole where the shaker bubble should have been! His 70 was black as was mine, and I immediately got the idea of a swap. I rolled down the passenger window and asked if he was interested. Well, he was as crazy as I was and we went back to my place and switched hoods in the driveway! My next mission was to get all the related shaker parts to make the changeover complete. I went to S&W Dodge and got all the parts (baseplate, adaptor ring, bubble, grills, gaskets and cables) for a whopping $175.00. Life was good!