Tele-Caster

I think that's a part of it.

Another part of it was that my father was involved in SCCA racing, campaigning an Austin Healey roadster, and he associated the Mustang with road racing because a Mustang took a class championship the year I first breathed the breath of life, and for the following two years thereafter.

Another part was that even as a five year old kid, I knew who Parneilli Jones was and that he drove a Boss 302 Mustang in races where Mark Donohue was changing the red, white, and blue paint from his Javelin with the paint on Dan Gurney's 'Cuda and Sam Posey's Challenger.

Those cars, with their smallblock power, were always "Pony Cars" to me -meant to compete with the Mustang in the showrooms and, for a few glorious years during my childhood, on road-racing courses, too, in SCCA Trans Am.

To me, a "muscle car" was usually a bigger car, but always with big-block power. Cars like an uncle's 396 Chevelle, for example, Or a childhood neighbor's RoadRunner, for another. A 'Cuda with a 426 Hemi in it was no longer a "Pony Car" to me, but was one of more "muscular" of the muscle cars of the era.

My '66 was stock, engine-wise, except for headers and compensating carb jetting, and some ignition re-curving. It wasn't any more a "muscle car" to me than my current 99 V6 Mustang is or my previous '92 5.0 was.

TfcCDR

I've got a few years on you, but not too many. I was 7 or 8 in when my dad bought his 64-1/2, and how the day after he brought it home, you couldn't see the car because my neighbor and his friends were looking at EVERYTHING (and making lists of what they would do to their own Mustangs when they arrived so that they would be ready for the track).

I did SCCA for a couple of years in the late 1970's, but that was also the time that I was getting into my career, and it had priority. The experience DID, however, teach me that "Lucifer" is just the long way of saying "Lucas."

Most people think that Parnelli Jones is the Michelin Man's real name. Hardly anyone remembers that he was a racer, most people think "Michael" when they hear the name "Andretti," and a friend who was one of the first LA County Paramedics finally had to stop referring to gurneys as "Dans" because nobody caught the reference any more.

For that matter, I remember when we didn't know how much Shirley Muldowney hated being called "Cha-Cha" (and I STILL think that it was a classy name for a driver!) and how we put Moon Eyes on EVERYTHING that moved.

I have always believed that the early Mustangs were the finest car of the type (sporty daily driver) ever built, and the 67 - 73 were a different car with a similar shape (also great, but a departure from the original lightweight, agile -- and inexpensive -- concept).

To me, having been a kid in the the Southern California Car-Crazy Age, a muscle car can't be bought in a showroom. You buy the seed there, but what makes muscle is all of the work that goes into mods. There were half a dozen dragstrips within an hour's drive (only one remains), and during summer you could tell what night it was by the direction from which the engine roars were coming. And there were a lot of Mustangs showing up for "Run What You Brung" Night.