It is 17 days til “The Great American Race”, The Daytona 500, gets under way and the fastest and greatest 43 race car driver drop the hammer down! Just thinking about sitting in my seat high above the start/finish line in the Sprint Cup Tower and hearing the rumbling roar of 34,ooo horsepower go hauling by me, makes goose bumps appear on my skin! Additionally, the view of 43 brightly painted race cars with their sponsors visible for all the world to see, at times, is a vision overload!
All that horsepower, cool paint schemes, and excitement makes me reminisce back to the 1960’s and my high school days. That was a time when, young boys and older men alike, were enamored with their cool cars! All that reminds me of the car I owned back when I was a senior in high school, the year was 1969!
My senior year saw me driving and owning a 1955 canary yellow Chevy Bel Air 2 door hardtop. Man it was a sight to see. That canary yellow Chevy was lowered, chrome reverse rims, and what a motor it had. Under the hood was a 283 cubic inch V-8 that was bored out to 292 C.I, a Holley 4 barrel, and a 4:56 rear end! It was lightening fast in a quarter mile race! It was just like some of those songs from that era!
Here is a list of a few of the songs about fast cars that we should all remember:
The number one car song is without a doubt The Beach Boys hit “409”. The song just made you want to “save your pennies and save your dimes” so you could by a “four speed, dual quad, posi-traction 409”!
You can never forget Jan and Dean’s hit, “Dead Man’s Curve”. “I was cruisin’ in my Stingray late one night, when an XKE pulled up on the right, and rolled down the window of his shiny new Jag, and he challenged me then and there to a drag”. Back then I didn’t know what an XKE was, but I soon learned!
How ’bout The Beach Boys hit, “Shut down”? “Tach it up, tach it up, buddy gonna shut you down.” the song talked about the big bad Dodge 413 Hemi and the Stingray Corvette.
You gotta love Ronnie and The Daytonas’ song, “Little GTO”. A Pontiac hot rod soon to be gone forever! “three deuces and a fours speed and a 389”. “C’mon and turn it on, wind it up, blow it out, GTO!” WOW!
Don’t forget The Rip Chords tune, “Hey Little Cobra”. In their song they sang about taking their Cobra to the race track hitched to the back of a Cadillac. I guess that they had a lot of dough back then!
Oh those hot rod memories are still very vivid for me, how about you?
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