Re: what did you drive in high school-CHEETAH
Think the performance bar has evolved much in the last 50 years?, well in handling in the US - yes, but on other performance measures - not so much. 1968 - I've built several customs, but the one that holds that special place in my heart follows: I started it at age 13 and finished age 16. I welded and fabricated it all from scratch including the frame, front axle, suspensions bits, interior, etc, and fitted a Cheetah body shell, bow tie 427, 4-spd, pontiac rear. The car was set up somewhere between a street rod and an altered, although the original Bill Thomas Cheetah's were road racers extrardinaire (Cobra's were crude by comparison). Curb weight around 1850, just under 500 HP for a power to weight ratio not quite double a viper. A very fun car to drive, although frankly at that point in my life the build was the mission. Hitchiking to all those part time jobs was a pain though. Taught me a lot about the dynamics of controlling real power. With an 8" driveshaft, it was actually very difficult to break the rear end loose in a straight line, it just put the power down hard. It's only been fairly recent that OEM cars have gotten to the point of me not scoffing at them (NSX's and F and P cars excluded). Before you ask, I did not take it to the strip. The boss of a gas station where I was night mechanic died on the strip flipping his extremely safe roll caged MoPar at 135. Made me a street guy, which was fine anyway. HP is great, but light weight is where it's at. The NSX kind of screwed me up. My plan in the early 90's was to build up another home built loosely based on the Manta kit car platform with say 900 HP or so. I drove a slightly used NSX just for the experience, and well, you've all been there. My final pictures were lost, most of these pictures were without doors during construction. They didn't fit at all and were a nightmare to get right.