I was on cloud nine when the DMV lady looked at me and said, “I’ve never given anyone a 100% score on their first driving test and I’ll be damned if I give you one. I’m going to say that you didn’t check your mirrors often enough. Congratulations, you passed.” I was officially the owner of a State of Colorado driver’s license, and I was over the moon. I was also without wheels. I didn’t have my own car at this time, but I wanted to go out and drive around just to celebrate a bit. So my chariot of the evening was my grandfather’s 1998 Dodge Intrepid, in it’s Deep Cranberry glory. Lucky for me, it was still a very new car, so the 2.7L V6 hadn’t had enough time to turn itself into a hand grenade, and I was very used to it as I’d been shuttling him around as his “chauffeur” for a few months to get my time in on my driver’s permit. In the grand scheme of things, I was pretty mellow. I picked up a couple of buddies and we went out to eat to celebrate, then on the way home it was decided that we’d indulge in a little stoplight drag action. Yes, I know, in hindsight it was dumb from many different angles, but we had a little fun with a couple sedans and one Mustang guy with a sense of humor before we called it quits. The 2.7 wasn’t threatening anyone, but it worked for the night.
It’s almost a ritual to have to borrow the parents’ car at some point in life. The question is, did you do anything a little more than just drive from point A to point B with it? And I’m not talking about date night…I’m talking about foot-to-floor stupidity, having a little fun when nobody should be looking kind of things. Like the time I borrowed my dad’s ’77 Grand Prix and tried to do my best impersonation of the “slippery” road sign in burnt rubber out on Illinois Route 127. Grandpa never found out about the Intrepid racing. Dad did find out about the smokeshow…
Ha ha ha – my dad had a Rover 110 which was a stolid slow car not known for its ability to street race….
Yes . But in my defense , I sold him that V8 Monza with a 4 speed and a limited slip .
My dad was driving a Datsun 210 at the time. Leaving a stoplight with my foot to the floor was standard procedure just to keep up with traffic.
The Datsun got replaced by a Ford Escort wagon, and I did try getting that one through some off road trails better suited to a Jeep – but that was with my dad in the passenger seat as he wanted to teach me the basics of off road driving.
I remember getting my mother’s ’74 Dodge Dart Swinger (225 v6) up to its theoretical (and then actual!) top speed of 101 on I-90 in upstate New York. This was at 6:00 in the morning after a prom… 🙂 I also participated in many snow-and dirt-donut fests with that car, and even took it off-road in some nearby gravel pits. Those were fun cars, and I definitely wish I had kept it…
I drove my dad’s ’68 Camaro conv’t but never raced it. The car was a strippo model with 6 cyl and 3 spd manual. Beat the piss out of it though!
I did my share of dumb shit when I was a kid, but that never crossed my mind. Plus, my old man didn’t have anything cool until I was long out of the house. Coincidence? Prolly not.
I plead the Fifth…
Did I race my parents car when I was a teen?? I race my parents car NOW!!!
Did I race it? No, but it was a 1976 LTD Country Squire with a 400ci with 150 or so ponies so there wasn’t much point in racing it. Now driving like a d__khead and drifting dirt cottage roads that’s another story….
1967 Buick Wildcat 4 door hardtop. Broke a motor mount doing a burnout which in turn torqued the motor and the fan hit the radiator hose putting a hole in it. Limped it home and pulled in the driveway with steam rolling out from under the hood. 16 years old at the time. If I remember right I didn’t get to drive it for awhile.
1973 Fury with a 360. It upshifted 1-2 at 50 mph, 2-3 at 90-92. Give it a mile or two of flat road, and it would hang the speedo needle down around the shift quadrant, a solid 130.
I had a friend who always wanted to try and beat it with his mom’s 74 Impala. The Impala would daylight the Fury on the leave. Every single time. The Chevy shifted up at 35 and maybe 70-75 at WOT. The Fury would start to pull the Chevy right when the 350 shifted into second gear. When my (dad’s) car caught second, I could look across at my buddy. By the time his shifted into high, he was looking at Mopar taillights.
Now, if he flipped the air cleaner lid, I didn’t catch him until his 2-3 shift. But, the 360 had a lid that could be flipped too.
Good, innocent fun. 🙂
a 200 HP 327 impala was not much fun. The 72 Maverick with a 302 with a C4 and power nothing on A78 tires however…….
I got 100% on my license test first time then promptly got popped by mom’s spy doing 80 mph on a back road in her 66 Olds 98. Hard to hide in a small Indiana town.