Editorial note: This is a little story from my past. It has no great significance, I just find it amusing.
My first car was a 1984 Mustang. It was a serviceable enough car as the factory had built it, but money from my first job, mulish stubbornness, and spectacularly bad judgement combined to turn it into a real monster. A full EFI conversion (from the original carburetion — a word spellcheck doesn’t even recognize anymore) was followed by race heads, full intake and exhaust upgrades, a massive fuel system, the de rigueur Vortech V1, a dyno tune, and a bunch of other stuff that slips my mind at the moment. The end result was 472HP at the flywheel (in 1998) paired with the stock rear drum brakes. Wheeeeee!
Aside from everything else, the car was loud. It wasn’t just the exhaust note (which once got me pulled over on a completely unmerited “exhibition of speed” complaint). The fuel pumps were loud on this car. The supercharger could be heard blocks away, and that brings us to our story.
I’d arranged to meet one of my friends for lunch, and when we sat down, he told me that he’d actually forgotten our appointment. When I asked how, then, he happened to be here, he explained that he’d been out for lunch on his own account, and had heard my motor’s distinctive racket pass by some streets away, which jogged his memory.
I was sorry to let the car go, but I could never get the computer tuned reliably, and there were certain questions in re: smog compliance. I understand the motor lives on in a Cobra replica, while the car itself has gone to that great garage in the sky. Sic transit gloria mundi.
