Real Good

Back in junior high I drooled over muscle cars. They were fast, they looked cool, and they sounded real good. In the late 60's and early 70's I could identify pretty much any car at night just by the sound of the engine, or the configuration of the headlamps; then give a full run-down on all the factory specs and every aftermarket part available for every one of them. Man, I couldn't wait to be sixteen. In the meantime I kept the dream alive by filling literally dozens of spiral notebooks with detailed modifications of my favorite cars, every one of them made to go fast.

Unfortunately, by the time I reached driving age in 1973, I realized that my paltry box-boy income wouldn't pay for the car I wanted, but it would pay for the car that I needed, a 1965 Ford Custom 4-door (Think Galaxie with round tail lamps). Oh well, it had a big trunk for taking friends along to the drive-in, and came with a 352 cubic inch V8 under the hood. That V8, when combined with my size-twelve right foot could fry the right rear tire with the best of 'em and blow up rearends too. And, it sounded real good doing it...after the mufflers blew out.

The closest I ever got to owning a muscle car was a 1970 Camaro with a small block loaded with go-fast bolt-on parts, headers and a 4-speed. I still remember searching the junkyards for weeks for just the right wheels to run...Yeah baby, 7" Rally's for the front and 8" Corvette Rally's for the rear. It had the look, it was a blast to drive on the winding canyon roads of SoCal, and best of all, it sounded real good. Unfortunately it was pronounced dead in 1976 after being t-boned and shoved into a telephone pole by a speeding Lincoln. Even today, when the light is just right, I swear I can still make out the Hurst logo from the Camaro's shifter on the outside of my right thigh.

Somewhere around 1979, 4x4's became my preferred method of transportation, mainly for getting to the out of the way surf spots in Baja Mexico that I loved so much. My first two rigs were powered by anemic 4-cylinders and my next two by 6's, one straight and the other a 'V'. For some reason that shall remain a mystery (even to me), I went back to a 4 cyl. again...not once, but twice, and then a couple more straight 6's. Power was not the main feature of any of these rigs, but they were all economical, and gearing and reasonable tire choice made everything I tried doable. I got my money's worth out of 'em too. All but two of these rigs were basket cases from off-road abuse by the time I sold them, or had them towed to the junkyard. But not one of them sounded real good...ever.

It wasn't until 1990 that I bought my first V8 powered 4x4, and man was I hooked. It had the seat of the pants feel that I'd been missing for years, and it sounded real good. I've owned a bunch of 4x4's since then - the majority of them barely achieving 'basket case' status. Of the ones that actually rolled and ran, my all-time fave's have been an '81 Chevy that I absolutely loved (and never should have sold), my present daily driver diesel powered Superduty and...the Rockn'FJ.

I found old Rockn' by accident back in 1994 while I was looking for a Jeep Scrambler or a CJ6 to build. As luck would have it, the beefy but slow Toyota 6-cylinder was running and fully intact. Since I'd previously owned a V8 powered Cruiser I really wanted the engine to die so I could swap in some real power, but for some unexplainable reason it just kept on running, even with my almost complete lack of maintenance. Fortunately in 1996 the factory-packaged smoke released itself from the side of the engine block, and soon after, another V8 powered rig was mine!

So I guess you could say that I did finally get my muscle car, or at least the off-road version of a muscle car that works for me. It has that certain look that still makes me drool like a junior high schoolboy, and yep, you guessed it...it sounds real good.

Captain Beadlock <><