Today’s strip introduces the old 69 Chevy. Actually, she was only 8 years old when I got her, but she a had a lot of miles on her and I drove the beast really hard. Actually had it up to 110MPH on a brand new stretch of highway that had just been opened downstate near my hometown of Winchester and the accelerator was NOT all the way to the floor. I chickened out as I was not decked out like NASCAR drivers. Anyway, the good-ol’ 1969 Caprice is introduced today as well as Bud’s kinkier side! 🙂
The comment “sleeps six” was a standard joke when I showed the car to people for the first time. The comment referred to the car being so damn BIG! The trunk would literally fit 3 or 4 people easily (great for smuggling into Drive-In movies in the day… Drive-Ins? Come on, I’m not the freakin’ old!). The old ’69 literally fell apart on highway I-55 near Pontiac, Illinois, at about 6:00am one chilly fall morning in 1978 as I returned home for a doctors appointment. The engine essentially fell out of the car and left a pile of parts on the highway behind me. I had to walk about a mile to a farm house to make a collect call home for help. Ah, if only we had cell phones.
I owned a ’74 for quite a while. It was powder blue, the deisel model. Only problem was, the engine fell out about a week before I was due to take it from Washington to Florida with the missus. Couple gearhead friends of mine helped out in time, but the only engine they could come up with on short notice was a 5-liter chevy flathead. Almost 500 ponies under the hood of a station wagon. That was fun.
That sucker weighed about 2 tons, roared like a demon with its scrote in a mousetrap when you put your foot down, and could outrun most police cruisers. God I miss that car.