In 1963 I bought Maverick's 60 Dodge Phoenix. It had a 383 with the 15" ram tube intake, headers and lots of tuning. My cousin worked for Swanson Used car lot and one weekend, he showed up with a 57 sedan delivery Chevy with a 409 in it. We went out to the road that ran along the 134 freeway near Griffith Park. We raced and I anialated him. He said that He didn't realize that a Dodge could be that fast.

Later that year my job sent me to Denver for schooling. I drove the Dodge to Denver. On Friday night while cruising downtown a new 64 Pontiac with a 421 wanted to race. I still had the 2.93's from the trip so he put a fender on me and then the ran tubes took over. I beat him so bad that I was stopping for a signal about 4 blocks down when he caught up. He was so embarrased that he ran the red light. I used to cruise around the park on Sundays. Nobody wanted to race because the Pontiac spread the word "Don't mess with the black Dodge".