My first auto shop class in high-school, I walked in thinking that I was untouchable. I knew everything they were going to try to hit me with. I knew the lingo, knew the words. Right up until the teacher asked me if I knew what the “football trick” was. Football? Car? Only way I could put that together was to re-create the Moochie scene from Christine with one particularly worthy candidate who just so happened to play for the team. But it was his way of humbling me into admitting that I didn’t have all of the answers. In case you were wondering, the trick involves stuffing a deflated football into the right rear coil spring of a late 1960s Biscayne and filling it back up with air before you went out to have a little fun with the locals, because of the way the car launched, with the passenger-rear sinking down.

The second-gen F-body doesn’t have that issue…right? Apparently it does. Watching this late 1970s Z28 launch is just like watching an old B-body take off: the rear axle stays level, the front end comes up and the entire body rocks to the right. I know that this isn’t the best way to get a car moving off of the line, but when it comes to the entertainment factor, you can’t deny that this kind of dramatic motion gets people’s attention quick. It looks intimidating when it appears that the whole engine is trying to torque over and is bent on taking the car with it!