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Barnstormin’: All in the Family


Barnstormin’: All in the Family

Recently my wife Kerri and I had occasion to road trip with her parents down to the lovely burg of West Chester, Pa for a family party celebrating the upcoming wedding of my sister in law to her fiance Jeff. Jeff’s family graciously invited us to a shin-dig they were throwing for the pair at their home. We accepted the invite, rented a furrin’ junk-box and headed south. The best part of the whole deal is that the family is picking up more gearheads with cool stuff! Jeff’s dad has an awesome 1970 Chevelle and his brother Greg has a shag-nasty Jeep Rubicon that he wheels the wee out of when he’s home. It was a great weekend trip. 

First, the rental car. It was a late model Nissan Altima with a werido CVT transmission that also had a manu-matic mode. Being the self-appointed driver, and professional rental car abuser, I ran several tests with that feature. Our family truckster Chrysler Pacifica is equipped with the “Auto-Stick” option, but this Nissan’s was way cooler. The Chrysler version doesn’t let you do anything daring with it, meaning that there’s a nanny mode that only allows it to shift at certain RPMs. We discovered that the Nissan would allow us to go all the way down to second gear at highway speed. We performed that test about half a dozen times when exiting the highway and whenever the hell we felt like it. Our female passengers were kind of annoyed by it, but their annoyance was tempered by the glee of my father in law and I. During hard cornering the four banger Nissan would spin the inside tire pretty hard. We ran this test at most intersections, rest stops, and a couple times at the hotel parking lot. We found that it was also possible to proceed with the emergency brake partially engaged for long periods. This testing was halted due to complaints of bad smells from the female passengers. They apparently are not into science. Lastly, the braking was impressive, especially combined with the engine braking from shifting the car into second gear at 70 mph. Oh yeah, we also discovered that unlike most moden cars, the Nissan will free rev up to the redline in neutral. We thought it would hold at the mid-range RPM like Fords do, but at a NJ rest stop we bounced the car off the rev limiter for a solid few seconds just to test this feature out. 

So the reason for our trip was to attend the wedding shower for Julie and Jeff. It should be noted at this time that Jeff is a 1st Lieutenant in the Marines. He graduated from the Naval Academy a couple years back and has been to all the world’s hot spots and even done work in Haiti during his time on active duty. An incredible fact about this family is that his brother Greg also graduated from the Naval Academy and is a Marine officer, currently stationed in Japan and will soon be preparing for duty in Afghanistan, and his youngest brother Steve is attending West Point and is a fire-balling left handed starting pitcher for the baseball team. At the time of this writing he was 5-1 on the season and had an ERA in the low 3-range. Needless to say, Jane and Kevin, the parents of the boys, are great people who raised a triplet of men who exemplify all the things that are good about our country and our armed services. Did we mention that they’re all gearheads too?

Kevin’s Chevelle is a 28,000 original mile driver that he cruises and thrashes on during the driving season in PA, Greg’s Jeep is all business with a full cage, lockers, rock sliders, a big lift, 35-inch tires, and scars from being rolled over more than once. There are lots of Jeep’s that look the part and never see dirt. This is not one of them. As Greg is in Japan with the Marines, the Jeep is dormant currently. He’s home for a week in the Fall and we’ll guarantee that the monster will be caked in PA slop before he returns to his work in the service of our country.

Jeff rolled through high school in a vintage Mercury Cougar and recently purchased a brand new, fully loaded, Chevy truck. In true BangShift fashion, he returned home from his tour, drove the truck for a few weeks, and promptly lifted it three inches and stuffed big meats under it. Jeff told us an awesome story about installing the lift. Greg had not departed for Japan yet, so the two brothers were installing the kit. They did the blocks in the back in short time then they moved to the front, which by the nature of GM’s IFS is not the easiest job in the world. Simply put, you need to blow the whole front end of the truck apart to install the lift kit. Their mom walked out into the garage at the point where the entire front suspension and guts of the front end were lying on the shop floor. Apparently their mom, Jane, was heard uttering the phrase, “THIS IS A BRAND NEW TRUCK?!” while shaking her head and walking back out the door.

I’m lucky as hell to be surrounded by gearheads in our own family. My dad, my father in law, my brother in law and his brother and dad are all accounted for in the gearhead lineup. As I’m trying to do with my sons, Kevin passed his love of things mechanical down to the three boys that grew up at their house.  

Despite the fact it was a nippy day in PA, the guys all escaped the party and spent the majority of the afternoon nipping on beers and climbing all over the Chevelle and Greg’s Jeep. The 396 sounds mighty good blowing it’s note through a pair of 40-series Flowmasters. Kevin offered me the keys but since I had been indulging more than a couple of adult beverages, I respectfully declined. It would have been neat to row the four gear around the block a time or two, but I’d never drive anyone’s pride and joy with anything less than a clear head.  

So at the end of the day, I’m not losing a sister-in-law, I’m picking up three gearheaded brothers. That’s a deal I’d make any day.

Because my camera is always welded to my hip, I shot a gallery of photos of both the Chevelle and the Jeep for your viewing pleasure. Click below to check them out!

Gallery: 1970 Chevelle SS 396 and bad ass Jeep Rubicon photos

Greg's big Jeep


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