It should probably be considered a blessing that my dad didn’t get to see the laundry list of stupid things that I’ve done with vehicles over my lifetime. He saw enough in just a couple of years: he saw me sink a 1978 Chrysler up to the bottoms of the doors in river mud, he got to hear about me spinning the same car out in front of a school official while I was leaving campus to get lunch, he got told about me burning the tires off of his ’77 Grand Prix after he had to help me put my car back together. And that’s tip-of-the-iceberg stuff. I never told him about the kinds of things I got up to when I was in Colorado or what I did when I had off-time while I was stationed at Fort Hood. And maybe it’s for the better that he never learned, but there are some days where I have to sit and wonder just what he’d think of where I ended up. He’s been gone thirteen years and it’s a hell of a leap from being a young helicopter tech in the Army to where I am at now. I think he’d dig it. I know that he’d be in the garage here at some point, watching me spin wrenches while I put my own car together. That, I’m sure of.
Robert was never much in the way of a speed demon, though. At least, he hadn’t been since his teenage years. I heard the stories about his old ’68 GTO and all of that, and I know that he could whip around a Kenworth better than I could just about anything else back in the day. But every now and then I still wish I could pull a stunt like this, where I would be able to elicit the “holy shit!” moment out of him out of one of my builds. It’d be worth a laugh, at least.
My dad (at 73 years old) would be kicking me out from behind the wheel and teaching me how to shift,his daily driver is a 2010 M3.
Thats the reaction my Dad would have had.Now his Dad my G’pa would have wanted to take a spin for himself.
Hah! That reminds me of my old man riding with me in my 351C powered Foxbody back in ’86:)
On the last corner before we got back to the house, I pulled it into low as we exited the corner and floorboarded it, redline in low, and most of the way through second, then HAAAAAARD on the brakes, and turn left into the driveway…. ……..stopped the car, shut off the engine.
He opened his door, got out, and walked into the house without looking at me, or saying a single word:):)