Red Hot Girl

[Copperace]

1976, I was 19, never owned a car and had just gotten my license because my Sargeant made me. Mom let me borrow $2000.00 to buy a used car. Well, as a Marine, all but, $500 of that went to partying and alcohol and wimmenZ. I was almost broke.

Met a guy that was transferring out. He said he had an old junker that ran really good and wanted to sell it. He wanted $700 for it.

We went to go see it and he opened the garage door and I saw this red beast looking like it was going to run right out of the garage and smash us both in place.

He started her up and she had that rumble, you know, with the glass packs? She had chrome slotted rims and 50s in the rear helped by extended shackles and standard size tire/rims in the front painted red.

I looked her over and offered him $350 since she was not really all that (yeah, it was a lie but, I was dickering here..gotta get a better deal). He hemmed and hawed and pretended to be surprised and I knew he was leaving the next day. He either had to pay up or simply lose the car.

He cocked his head to the side and said what about $450, I immediately countered with $400 and he said "Deal!" I drove her right off to the car wash and began soaping her up and down...okay...almost too far.

She took me all over the place, I had mostly been a city boy during my teen years so we used public transportation and the new freedom this sweet looking red girl gave me made me feel like a million bucks!!

And then...there was this thing she could do, cruising down the highway doing bout 50mph, another hot car pulled up beside us...and revved the engine...so, I slapped her in neutral and did some revving also..then the other guy stomped on it and started to leave us in the dust...so, I slammed her into 1st gear and just plowed my foot through the floorboard.

For a nano-second she seemed to almost crouch down in the rear and then the front end would raise just a little...and then...the rear tires gave out a little holler and she growled at the top of her exhaust! And before I knew it we were passing the sucker in the other car...!!!!

Yeah, she was almost always fun....love..not sure I would call it that back then..maybe pride at having something that could take me places both on and off the road and that made smiles on the inside.