THE SEVENTIES Options

[wonkipop]

out for my saturday morning long distance grocery walk.

........lo and behold.



1973 ford falcon XA.
pepper red. GT. 351 cleveland.
(aussie ford that is).
however ......styled in detroit. last of the aussie fords styled in the USA.
put me in a good mood all day.
owner was standing nearby and i had a quick chat.
freshly restored by him.
cracked a joke about it having its nose up like a 914.
......he knew what a 914 was and asked me why i said that.
told him i had one that was one shade of orange off his pepper red.
or was that pepper orange?
ie phoenix red. or is that phoenix orange. he knew what phoenix red was.

car blokes. top blokes.



70s. top era. go fast stripes. wild colors. emotionally crippled cars suffering from epa strangulation pillow suffocation.
sure beats the 21st century. what shade of grey is that again. oh yeah. mirage grey.
ah i thought it was saharan grey. nice polar silver SUV there mate. its not silver. its uber unsaturated black. tops. beaudiful touch screen you got there where the gear lever used to be. yeah. gear levers are for pensioners. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[bkrantz]

Here's my first car, bought in 1973 for $500 when I was 16. I earned that as a subcontractor to my carpenter dad, who was remodeling part of the local Gulf station. I learned how to do bathroom tile, and did the restrooms. My uncle was a city mechanic and had a side business fixing wrecks and selling them. He took me to a salvage yard and we went home with the 1969 Fiat.

It could have been a 914. I was a dedicated Car and Driver reader, and they had recently published a comparison of SCCA-legal sports cars. The 914 finished 4th out of 8, and I had to have the winner.

Unfortunately, the car I could afford had hit a pole dead-center. The bumper, front panel, grill, and hood looked nasty, but the mechanicals and even the radiator were fine. I learned how to do body work (poorly--at that point I was a damned PO who was VERY fond of bondo). Once I got it running, I then had to learn how to change the syncros in the 5 speed transmission.