New forum member here, my command m37 should be coming off the truck tomorrow, out of NE.
I grew up somehow really liking cars, surprisingly so, as my dad, even though a naval aviator, was never really a "car guy." So in 'about '62 or so when I got my learner's permit, i started driving his '59 Ford Anglia, rolling it onto its roof in my HS parking lot, right in front of the flag poll. Drove it home, and my dad grounded me for 3 months, and ever-after, that little boxy car proudly wore the roof dents, as proof of battle. Then off to Nebraska in '65, and bought my first car, a '63 TR4, driving it 44K miles i the eleven months I owned it, mostly driving back and forth every chance I got, Lincoln to DC and back, always on the back roads, as I could not afford the tolls east of Chicago. Rebuilt the motor once (an epic story in itself). Then into a '65 MGB, which my wife rolled a 360 at speed, ending up backwards down off I80 in Iowa, before dawn, only tearing the top. I was asleep, our then infant son asleep on the parcel shelf. We came within inches of all being killed.
Then, graduating from NU via ROTC, and about to be posted to Germany as newly minted 2nd LT, bought my first new car, a '69 Dodge Charger R/T, with the 440 motor, paid all of $3275 for it.. Took it to Germany, which was still rebuilding, and loved to run up and down on the Autobahn, on 18c a gallon army Quartermaster gas, blowing off everybody in my way. Of course, with the drum brakes it would not make one full stop from any speed over about 90 mph. Sold it for a VW Squareback, (for reasons I have never really understood), which of course, being my nature, I modified to no end, Gene Berg parts, Porsche rims, and much more, full flow oiling with help of army Chinook mechanics. Drove that trusty VW over a quarter million miles, and then sold it in about '79 for the first of two TR8's, the second one much tuned by Huffaker racing.
Lost the second in a garage fire, due to a leaking fuel line being lit off by the garage gas hot water heater pilot, costing me my car, all my garage stuff, and nearly my life.
It took awhile to get back into sports cars, but bought a '90 AWD Turbo Eclipse, which soon became much also much modified, and pretty fast, and I tracked it a few times at Heartland Park, Topeka.
But I had always wanted a Shelby Cobra, but even when you could pick them up for $4K or so, so finally, in '90, bought a Superformance replica, with a race built stroked 351 Windsor, pushed out to 396 ci, putting out just under 500 ponies. My son and I tracked it relentlessly, over a hundred drag strip runs, and in the decade I owned it, put over 140,000 miles on it, as it was my daily driver. It can be done. Eventually, about 5 years ago, sold that blindingly fast, formidable track car, (it too being very much modified), and got a 997S Porsche, then moved about two years ago to a much modified '07 Porsche GT3.
So, having owned and driven and tracked such thrilling cars, when I sold the Porsche a month ago, decided I could not replace them any other sports car, so lucked into a great M37 Or more properly an M42 out in NE, pretty much as delivered, without all the radio's. Just needs cosmetics.
So, here are a few of my cars:
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here is a video of my son running down a Porsche on the track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mubz_h16lE
and here is my son driving, me navigating this summer at the Sandhills Open Road challenge way out in north west NE, 26 miles north then back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FQdWNYUKvc
all the best guys.....
NAM VET