One of the most influential moments on the path that led me to where I am today involved a Plymouth ‘Cuda similar to the one you’ll see in the video. It was a 1972-74 car, not a 1971 like the video car, but just about everything else lines up: right color, same wheels, and the same blatant disregard for the rear tires. The guy lived up the driveway from my house, a friendly enough guy named Dave. He had the ‘Cuda as long as I’d been living in Washington State, and once I realized that no, it’s not a splitbumper Camaro, I was curious. The car had been a racer at one point but Dave wound up putting the car back onto the street. The last time I saw it for sure was sometime before the fall of 1998, when he brought it by the house to show it off to my stepdad. I don’t remember if it was a fresh mill under the hood or what that he was all excited about, but at one point I piled in the backseat to go on a ride to get a feel for the car. It moved out nicely and made the right noises, but when he got to the very wide intersection that is Bandix Road and Nelson Road, he cranked the wheel hard left, booted the throttle and I got a fantastic lesson in how g-forces work. After about five rotations the ‘Cuda was sashaying back up the road and I was done. I had learned how to slide a car around on dirt but the combination of fried rubber, tire scream and howling small-block was better than any drug I’ve tried since. To this day a round-taillight E-body ‘Cuda is a bucket list car, even if they are out of the budget by a wide margin, and it’s images like what you’ll hear and see below that keep me from letting go of hope. A race car is cool, a restored car is pretty, but I’ll take mine rough and rowdy, thank you kindly.