Cars & Such

So my long abused van's transmission committed suicide.  I am a little irritated over this as I had counted on that vehicle being around for about three more years.  But, it appears it is best this way, it was eating me alive with gas consumption and is not even worth the cost of a new transmission.  Sigh.....

Dutchman, always the joker, sent me an email last night from Craigslist on a 1972 Pinto for sale.  And I had to have a good laugh.  You see .....

Dutchman and I both have a long history with 1972 Pintos.  In the days when you could not give these away - because they were "deathtraps waiting to explode at any moment!", we were college students.  Dutchman bought his first and figured out the Ford codes.  If you knew the numbers you could ferret out one made in Canada (superior body fitting and welds) and they came with a German built drive train (very solid).  His was a typical sedan, I went for the full glass hatch back model.  We collected nine of them so we always had a solid parts source.  If nothing else we were starving college students!

Then Dutchman figured out that the engine mounts, transmission mounts and parts were actually all the same on the German engines as what came standard in the Lotus.  We smiled.  Shortly there after he had a Pinto with a twin overhead cam, twin carbs, headers and was mighty fast.

How fast?  Well, my daily driver back then was a 1967 Alfa, which had been heavily modified for racing.  So, we took both cars for a trip to Denver and I told him to catch me if he could!  He stayed with my Alfa all the way up to 155 mph, where I backed off.  My car still had plenty of rpms before the red line, but I really do not like driving that fast.  Dutchman told me that he was max'ed out though.  Pretty respectable for a 1972 Ford Pinto.  We had some real fun at the street races in Denver that month!  He got about 28 mpg and my Alfa was 36 mpg with our average speed being 104 on I-84 (though I think it was called I-80 back then).....  Yeah we had fun and I hope my son does not read this!

When it came time for him to sell, my Alfa was long gone and I bought his Pinto but it just never ran well for me as it had for him.  He was off in California at the time on some "secret" project so was even hard to get a hold of for questions.  Eventually, I sold the car to a street racer.  He never got the same performance as the Dutchman either.  And, he sold it to a guy whom races it in a vintage car series in Oregon.  Go figure.  My old Alfa is doing the same in the Concord, California area these days.

As for my hatch back model, well it was totaled out when some idiots in a CJ-5 lost control of their Jeep on the highway and crushed my car between them and the jersey barrier.  Sigh.  Of course, they took off and I was sort of stuck - having broken my left leg when it became one with the window riser on the door.  But, that is another story for another time.....