I have already mentioned my first Pontiac a 65 GTO convertible and my first new Pontiac a 1973 Trans Am.
Some time in 1973 my best friend had a neighbor who owned a grocery store. They had a 1967 Catalina wagon used as a delivery vehicle. The car quit running and the owner was told it needed an engine. Together with three other friends we bought the car for a dollar. Within a couple days I towed it to the transmission shop where I worked and replaced the bad timing chain and gears. A couple of days later my best friend drove it back to his house. His neighbor, the original owner was upset to see the car running, and even more upset when he heard it didn’t need an engine. One of the guys in the group nick named the car Dragon Wagon. Not because it was fast but the rear bumper was so low to the ground it was almost dragging. The car was scary to drive, the front suspension was so worn the car would almost move to the right a full lane when you stepped on the gas and back to the left when you hit the brakes. The left motor mount was broken and often when the engine would torque over it would disengage the accelerator linkage. We would have a driver hood the brake while in gear, I would grab the carb linkage making the engine torque over while realigning the carb linkage bell crank, release the carb and everything would settle back into place. We kept it three or four months using it to hall around car parts. We never got plates or insurance and one of the guys was in the habit of using it to do lawn jobs. Between the four of us there were a lot of hi-jinx and stupid things I won’t talk about. We sold it for $200 and probably had less than $50 invested in parts.
|