Cars I've loved before ......Part 2!

In the last post I talked about some great cars that I didn't buy. Here's the list of ones that I DID buy, and had a lot of fun with or sold and made a tidy profit on. # 1. After my Judge, my absolute favorite was my '77 Trans-Am. I gave it the Herb Adams "Fire-Am" treatment which went beyond DKM's "Macho" treatment and incuded headers and real dual exhausts, a Holley Street Dominator aluminum intake, a re-curved distributor, and and re-jetted carb with the "Shaker" scoop opened, and a Trans-go shift kit. If I was going less than 25 mph and punched it, the trans would kick into low gear, and lay about 8-10 ft of rubber. For having a 2.56:1 axle ratio, it was pretty damn fast, and got about 18 mpg on the highway. I drove that car five years, and only lost about 3 or 4  "Stoplight Gran Prixs". # 2. I had two Venturas, but my favorite was the 1973 model I had that looked just like the one in the movie "The Seven-Ups". It had the hatchback rear, baby moon hubcaps and chrome wheels, and a strong 350 Pontiac. I blew the doors off my friend's 1970 350 Malibu, and another buddys 327 / 4-speed '66 Chevelle. And that was before I added the Edelbrock P4B intake manifold, dual exhaust, and TransGo shift kit. I always intended to swap in a 455, but the 350 ran so damded good, that I never got motivated enough to tear it down. # 3. I had two El Caminos-a '68 and a '70. The '68 was an SS396, but the Rat spun a bearing shortly after I got it. However, my cousin hooked me up with the 275 hp 327 out of his wrecked Impala, and that actually made it a nicer car. It had roughly the same amount of power-( The 396 was a 325 hp version ) but it took off way better-less wheelspin, got better gas mileage, and handled better with less weight on the front end. I regret selling this one to this day-as it had bucket seats, full guages and tach, tilt wheel, power windows, and factory Air. The '70 model was a 350 base model, but like a lot of people, I like that front end the best. I planned to turn it into an SS454 clone, but someone made me an offer I couldn't refuse and I sold it. # 4 My girlfriend at the time had a nice '68 Charger with a 383 that she wanted me to restore, so I bought two Chargers-one '68, the other a '69- from a guy that must have had 100 old Mopars on his land. I got the '69 running, and sold it for a huge profit. Before I could start stripping the '68 parts car, a guy who was restoring his own "Dukes of Hazzard" Charger offered me about 5 times what I paid for it. This was over 20 years ago, and these Chargers were that much in demand. On the upside, I did use the money to help my girlfriend fix hers. # 5. I've never been much of a Ford guy but I did buy two Mustangs and made money on both of them. One was a 1982 4-speed / 5.0 GT. The one with a two-barrel carb. Although the later 4bbl / 5-speed models are more in demand, I sold this to a kid who loved it for more than double what I paid for it. The other I've mentioned before- was a 1966 GT with the Rally-Pac guages, factory a/c, Pony interior, and "California Megaphone" exhaust with date-coded mufflers intact. I bought it for my wife who said she always wanted a '65-'66 Mustang, but she refused to drive it for some insane reason, and I sold it to a Mustang freak who spent about 10 grand on it even thought it was practically mint when I bought it. # 6.  I bought a 1976 Gran Prix with T-tops and a 400 that I was going to hot rod. Before I could really get that project going, I bought my 1973 Hurst / Olds. I sold the GP to my brother who drove it for a while, and then used the 400 as the basis for his stormin' GTO engine. He threw a 350 we had laying around into the GP and sold it for more than I charged him. # 7. The 2nd Ventura I had was a '71 that was originally a six-cylinder model. Small bumpers, no p/s, no P/b, it was very light-and when I stuffed the 400 out of my wrecked '77 T/A in it, it was very fast. But it didn't stop real good with 4-wheel drum brakes, and with monoleaf springs, you could hear the driveline hit the floorboards under acceleration, as it wheelhopped and smoked the the tires forever. I planned to swap in the multi-leaf posi, and front disc brakes off the T/A, but I wrecked it before that plan came to fruition. Bottom line, I've always enjoyed playing with musclecars and probably always will. My dad still does, and he's 73. Hopefully my son will carry the torch for the next generation. Mastermind