I could write an encyclopedia...

In the fall of ‘56, my father switched from Dynaflow Buicks to a ‘57 Chrysler (Hemi / T-flite). He wasn’t a car guy but his mind was blown!

I grew up in a middle-class apartment-house NYC neighborhood. All the guys were “jocks”. I needed to know how stuff worked, so I started to hang out on the wrong side of the “tracks” (actually, the Horace Harding Expressway) with the Italian kids who grew up in houses with driveways and even garages! They introduced me to pizza and Italian ices.

Two guys in particular were my real mentors, taught me wrench-twisting and took me to Westhampton drag strip. Louis Macari drove a stick Corsair Monza, and Joseph Brancaccio drove a worked I-6 full-size Ford. I, thanks to dad’s ‘57, was already a Mopar guy. (Then he bought a ‘62, and the real fun started....)

But I digress. Neither of the guys would teach me how to drive stick (it woulda had to be one of their cars!) But I was determined. In ‘62, I turned 18 and saved up a few bucks. I saw a ‘60 Valiant 4-door (dull silver V-200, 170, three-on-the-floor) advertised in the paper at a dealer in Queens. I took the subway over and checked it out, and wound up leaving a deposit.

Friday after work, I again took mass transit to the dealer, and completed the purchase. The salesman walked me out to the car to give me a quick explanation of the “features” (AM radio, heater...). When he was done, I casually said “oh, by the way, can you show me how to drive stick...?” After he came down from the ceiling, he did give me a reasonably decent explanation of the concepts, and drove around the block once with me riding shotgun. With that under my belt, I pulled out into Friday afternoon NYC rush hour traffic. I stalled exactly once.

I went home, showed my parents, and gulped down some food, then headed out to hone my M.T. skills. By 10PM I was ready.

I pulled into White Castle. As expected, Louie and Joe were hanging out with their cars. When they saw my “old man’s” silver 4-door Valiant, they laughed their butts off. By 10:30, however, they were all over the little A-body’s engine compartment. “How can that thing be so fast....?” To say that I cleaned their clocks would be an understatement. And we knew some cool twisty roads out in Nassau county, and the ultimate: Storm King Highway up in Orange county. The Valiant absolutely ran away and hid from the Ford and Chevy on those roads.

49 years later, and I’m still discovering countless ways why Mopars are #1! I should write that book....

Rick