[Rafe LORHO]

Hello,
I live in France and I'm new to this forum.
In Europe we have a "tuning" phenomenon since a few years now, but unfortunately it's not always the best cars that are "tuned".
Here's my story:

While cruising up to the monthly American Car meeting near where I live in Brittany (west France), I was going up a hill at about 70mph (110 km/h - it's the speed limit here) when suddenly I saw a little Peugeot 206 starting to fill my rear view mirror.
This car was completely "kitted" with everything that you could possibly imagine from your mail order tuning magazine: body kit, skirts, flared wheel arches, huge rear spoiler, smoked glass windows, flashy wheels, low profile tyres etc... (the list is too long - he must have spent a fortune on all that!)
So more so out of curiosity, I let him go by so that I could see (and hear) what he had under all that junk.
The guy pulls along side of me and then starts "blipping" his throttle so as to make his car surge back and forth. I got a look at his tail pipes - which were of a half decent diameter. His engine made a pretty good noise so I guessed his car was based nevertheless on a sporty version of the 206.
So here we both were going up this rather steep hill and the 206 driver wanted to play!
Now my car is not a radically modified Trans Am, the only thing that's different from original is a full flow exhaust system from "Pypes". (The #5 heads are this year's winter project - not yet fitted!) I've even still got the original carb for the moment.
(My last race with a Corvette C4 left me rather ashamed - the Trans Am topped out at about 120mph (210km/h) and the Corvette steamed off into the distance!!)
Having said all this, the one thing that I have is torque and you must remember that we were both going uphill.
So I said to myself "Let's see what you've got under all that plastic junk!"
I floored the accelerator pedal and the revs started to mount. The kick down cut in and the revs shot up to 4000rpm. At the same time the flap opened on the "Shaker" – I love this thing and I am so glad that I modified my Shaker with the solenoid kit. It my not change much in the way of performance, but boy does it look good!
The Peugeot 206 must have coughed because he had to change down from 4th to 3rd. Going uphill at about 75/80 mph, he had to be pulling nearly 6000rpm in 3rd. I don't know what a modern Peugeot engine is capable of but I guess it starts to redline at 6500rpm.
The Trans Am carried on going up in revs and faster in speed. The Olds 403 is a good winding engine but you must be careful as you approach 5500rpm. (My tach said I once went to 6200, but I didn't believe it, and I've been told that these Olds usually explode above 5500 to 6000rpm!)
So here we were both coming to the crest of the hill and now the speed must have been close to 100mph (160km/h). At this point I eased back a notch on the pedal in order to break the kick down contact. My TH 400 went straight into top and it's here that we saw the advantage of torque! The Trans Am continues to accelerate and leaves the 206 for dead!!
He doesn't know what's hit him! He changes up to 4th in order to keep up, but it's too late. He changes down to 3rd, but his machine tops out on the redline and starts to misfire.
We're on the level now, and "Bandit Trans Am" is still going. The 206 is 5 or 6 car lengths behind and it's over for him!
It's a clear stretch of road so I keep the pace up (while keeping an eye on the tach – don't push it over 5500rpm.)
After 5 minutes I ease off in order to let my colleagues catch up. (We always go to a meeting in convoy: Firebirds, Corvettes, Mustangs etc…)
It's Frank's red Stingray that is first to catch up. I can see him grinning in my rear view mirror. He mouths something like "You showed that idiot!".
Once all the guys and girls are back in the convoy, we carry on to our meeting. I guess they all ate a piece of 206 after me!
We didn't see the Peugeot until a lot later as we were approaching our destination. As we were slowing down to turn off the motorway, the 206 flew past, plastic parts vibrating in the wind!

"Take it home to the garage and don't come out to play with the big boys until you've grown up!"

I saw on this forum that someone had a "U ever eaten Pontiac dust?" plate. I'll have to get me one of those….

Best regards,
Rafe