[64catman]

It was in the mid-80's, I was 16 years old and had saved up enough money to buy my first car. Went to the used car lot and saw a couple cars that were in my general price range. The first was a pretty 70 Monte Carlo that I really liked, but it was a little more than what I had...so the salesman tells me to take a look at the 70 LeMans. I looked it over, it had faded gold paint, mud & snow tires on the back and was dirty as heck from sitting at the back of the lot for quite some time....I wasn't too interested, but the sales guy convinced me to take if for a spin......I was hooked.

I bought the car and within a few weeks had beaten all my friends Chevelles and Novas in my "stock 350" LeMans. There was one car that I feared though and that was a black '55 Chevy that had a built 327 in it with cam, headers, aluminum hi-rise, dual quads and according to everyone, was wicked fast. One Friday night cruising the local town square, the 55 pulls up next to me and asks me if I want to run. I tried to beg off, but my buddies in the car with me wouldn't let me, so we went out to a deserted road that lead up to a local factory, and was straight as an arrow and ran about a mile before ending in the parking lot.

We line them up, the owner of the 55 got out and uncapped his exhaust, and I'm thinking I am about to get my butt handed to me. We both do a burnout, him with a huge cloud of smoke, and me with my mud & snow tires howling like crazy. The "starter" yelled "GO" and the 55 just launches. I was a little late leaving the line and the 55 was already 4-5 car lengths ahead of me. I started to reel him in a little at a time but ran out of road. He won by a little over a car length. I knew I had not given him my best race, so when he asked if I wanted to run again, I said yes. We turned around and lined them up again....This time I got the holeshot on him and he never caught me. He was very upset and wanted to see what I had under the hood. So I popped the hood and he was even more upset to see a dirty motor with a "350" air cleaner on it.

It wasn't until quite some time later and many races won that I took the car to a local mechanic that knew his cars, and had heard about how fast my LeMans was. I took the car in because I had an exhaust leak. He looked around under the hood, muttered "What the hell?" and disappeared into his office. He came out about 10 minutes later grinning at me.

"Son" he tells me "that ain't no 350, that is a 455 out of a 71 GTO"

Turns out a guy in it's past had created a nice little sleeper complete with all of the 350 badging, and I had been the lucky one to pick it up.

I sure do miss that car, I traded it in on a Buick Regal in 1987.