Fast Cars, 4-Speeds & Fist-Fights
By R.A. Jetter
FIVE MINUTES
Not a very long time, right?
Equates to 300 seconds… now that’s longer, isn’t it?
One is interminably slow… yet, the other can be damned fast. How can that be? Same amount of time. Guess it all depends on where you were and what you were doing in those five minutes…
I gotta tell you, we were flying… the big ol’ Buick topped the hill… felt like the whole car lifted as we flew over the top, down into the bottom of another and up, our stomachs did flips. Didn’t know that big hog had it in her… Dave chortled. “Look, almost got the speedo buried. Betcha can’t do that with yours … goin’ uphill.”
He’s right… my ‘57 wouldn’t do that, and, in 1961, it wasn’t quite four years old, but there was a big difference between a straight six and a straight eight. Even tho my 150 two door was six years newer, that ‘51 engine still had a lot of life in her… and a lot of horsepower… or is that cubic inches?
Didn’t matter… the speedo bounced off 110 flying that narrow two lane — Hiway 30. We were headed to Carroll, for a football game… and good high school girls… maybe a couple beers… uhm, six-paks… reason enuff for speed. Ten miles from the field Dave decided we’d better hurry… pushed that accelerator down… took about five minutes to get her going and about five minutes to cover ten miles. Dave felt pretty smug… we’d make the kick-off. Grinning, he let off the gas, allowed the Buick to coast down the last hill before town. That’s when we heard it… a slight knock coming thru the firewall, just under the blare of the AM radio. “Hear that?”
“Yeah. What is it?” I asked.
“Sounds like it’s in the engine.”
He shoved the gear-shifter into neutral and revved the engine. Big mistake… the knocking got louder… and louder still. Ka-thunk! Bad noise… metallic, loud. Quit. “Uh-oh.”
“What?” I asked. “We in trouble?”
Dave shifted back into gear at 60… that was all she wrote… it went wappity-wap, wappity-whoosh, bang, bang, bang! Blue smoke poured instantly from the edges of the hood, the smell overpowering. Red lights on the dash illuminated, the car groaned. Dave tried frantically to start it… wouldn’t even turn over… we rolled to a stop across from a trucking company. “Crap,” Dave said.