Most fun you had in a car. KEEP IT P.G.

[Russell C]

Oh, I guess my vote would be for the 1991 Colorado vacation where I spotted a spiffy dirt side road north of Silverton along the route going up Red Mountain Pass, which I thought would make a nice place to drive up and eat lunch at the last place before I'd have to turn around. Such a smooth recently cleared road, I ended up stopping east of the summit, and afterward I just kept heading west. Had to have been cleared & flattened mere days earlier by a bulldozer, turned out to be Ophir Pass, essentially a 4x4 jeep road not suited for 4x2 tin box hatchbacks like mine. Reckless of me not to know what was over the crest or where the road ended up, but luck of the draw gave me a ride that was not usually smooth, having only one minorly hairy crossing of a wash with a little water in it. It sure was fun and scenic.

[The70judgeman]

In my first car with three of my buddies. I was challenged to see how fast my '72 LeMans could go. Well...I buried the speedo past its mechanical ability. It just kept bouncing at 120mph. As fun as that was...it was also just as, or more, as dumb. Thinking back as to how worn out that car was and not exactly a gem mechanically. Guess we were all lucky nothing catastrophic happened.

[Foxer]

 

My 2004 visit to the Saratoga Auto Museum for the Bulgari collection and Buick Centennial exhibit, going out the back roads of Massachusetts, Vermont and New York. I ended up with my first 1991-96 B wagon, a '93 Roadmaster, and that was a nice, pleasant ride. The B-bodies are king of the road cars as far as I'm concerned.

Charlie Larkin

I didn't know a Roadmaster would even FIT on our back roads, Charlie!

Did you meet up with our own VW Dave at he Saratoga Auto Museum? .. his place of employment, lucky guy.

 

I

[HomerS]

1993 Dodge Stealth.  Nothing makes an insurance agent cringe than writing a policy on one of these to a single, male, under 30 driver....even with a spotless record.  (25% surcharge for the SE and RT (due to the 24V engine) and my carrier wouldn't one for the RT Turbo for ANY age driver).  Always had the sensible car before this (but kept the Dodge Rampage as a second car as the hatch was only about ten inches deep).  Front wheel drive so it was great in the snow.  Even the base model had enough to break it into triple digits (common sense went out the window and took it up to 130 mph).

Getting married and having kids made me re-home it as now i needed something with a usable backseat. Wife hated it as we pulled into a parking space on day and view out the passenger side window was the 16" wheels on a Ford F250 4x4.  Bought it with 13,xxx miles and sold it with 110,xxx

[JTalmage]

I had a few good times in my '94 Mustang GT. It's mostly stock with a lot of miles but fun.

I live in the country so I'm used to flinging it around corners. I really enjoy that.

I have drag raced it (not professionally but just at test n tunes) 

I have also street raced it on 2 occasions. Stomped a Cobalt SS, and a 95-ish Z28 Camaro.

[caine440]

I was 18 and did not know any better, Took my 1970 Roadrunner 440+6 4 speed on a road trip.

 

[High octane]

Keep it P.G., well probably when I was in Arkansas in 1971 doin' 130 mph in my Super Bee and holdin' it back so it wouldn't get away from me, as there was still some pedal left. And another time when I was cruising home through Iowa doin' 90 mph 'til I came upon a Porsche convert and bumped it up to 120 mph to pass him. He then did the same, and the game went on for awhile. Then I backed off and his passenger, she waved bye-bye as I continued my 90 mph cruise. Those were the good old days, and of course I was a LOT younger then as well.

[OneTrickPony]

My senior year, I blew the engine in my 65 Mustang. My dad found a 55 Buick 4d Special that I could buy for $35 dollars. It had just been registered so it had a years worth of license plates ($32) on it. I drove that thing until it needed new plates and sold it for $35!

The old Buick was a real beater but it was as reliable as any car could be. It had working AC (with rear vents!), dual heaters, and Buick's version of a Wonderbar AM radio. The Wonderbar was an early version of Seek where you could just hit the long bar-shaped button on the front of the radio and it would seek to the next strong station and lock in. This was very rare even in 73 when I bought the car. To make it even cooler, it had a switch on the floor next to the dimmer switch to activate the seek. The other unusual feature for the time was that the key did not have a start position. You turned the key to the Run position and floored the gas pedal to activate the starter. These two features are what brings me to the fun part of the story.

My friend and I concocted a story about the car. We would tell people that the car was haunted by the previous owner and that she hated Rock and Roll music.  Then after riding around a while with some unsuspecting passenger (usually female) I would tap the seek button of the floor. Since I live in Texas, it wasn't hard to make the radio change from RnR to country! Then my bud and I would laugh while our dates would get nervous and usually slide over real close for protection. This worked especially well when parked. That's when the "can't start the car with the key" feature would come in handy! Let them twist the key all they wanted but the old Buick would never even give a grunt. "I guess she is punishing us for listening to RnR!"

Of course we always let them in on the joke and usually there were no problems until one particular night when I ended up getting one young lady home late. She got so scared she jumped out of the car and started running. By the time we caught her, got her calmed down, and talked back into the car we were close to an hour after her curfew. :-(

[b-body fan]

That's funny!

[jbwelda]

how about driving from sacramento to san diego, middle of august, three people (me and two women) in an MGB with no top no AC and not much else, 105 degrees.

oh you said FUN! that definitely wasn't fun.

jb

 

[ZTony8]

A few times come to mind:

1)Being a total novice and bracket racing my '79 Malibu (305-4v,factory 4 speed) at Lapeer Dragway and making it all the way to the final round before nerves got to me and I redlighted.

2)Getting a ride around Michigan Speedway in a PPG Pace Car Corvette and seeing 165 m.p.h. at the start/finish line.

3)As a 7 year old boy  in 1961 getting to sit in the Buick Wildcat II show car at the dealership where my Dad was service manager.

4)Being season class champion twice in my local autocross series.

5) Being fastest in class at the local CCM July 4th time trials at Waterford Hills race course with my '84 Z-28(and in other years beating guys times in their own cars)

6) Anytime driving my '27 Chevy woody before it was wrecked in a road accident.

7) Winning a TSD rally put on by the sports car club I'm in with a friend in his Baja style Beetle.There's a long story about that win.

Edited August 20, 2015 by ZTony8
more info

[horsepower]

Seeing the look on my mom's face when she came home from shopping with my wife in the '72 Pinto Runabout that WE put a '68 high compression 302 in, it kept the stock hood, and used the eight inch wide fifty series T/A radials on the thirteen inch wheels on the rear end a C-4 trans. The only thing that gave it away was two exhaust pipes coming out the right rear of the car and the exhaust note, they were coming home on the freeway and some kid in a hot rodded pickup kept pulling along side and standing on the gas then dropping back to them and doing it again, what he hadn't noticed is that the wife would speed up slightly every time he did this until she got to around 70 mph when he dropped back beside her that time she was ready and when he punched it that time she did too, she said it kicked down to second gear and started spinning the rear tires, she passed the kid about the time it shifted to high gear, and was still smoking both rear tires. She then let off and the kid almost locked up his brakes slowing down enough to pull in behind her, he never tried to pass again, and my mom still had a death grip on the dash pad and was just sitting staring straight ahead when they got home. 

We later put a seriously built 2.8 that put out close to 350 horsepower into another Pinto, it was much easier to drive and was actually faster and handled a lot better, it was the only car I have ever owned that would still be pulling strong in fourth gear at 7800 rpm when the poor choice for valve springs would give up and the valves would start to float. But the V-8 Pinto was the most impressive, you could spin the tires in any gear up to about 90 mph just by standing on the gas, on curvy roads you used the gas pedal almost more than the steering wheel to aim it, but it was scary on wet pavement.

[Tom Geiger]

Demo Derby, Wall Stadium, Wall, NJ in the early 1980s.  My buddy and I'd run once a year, or as often as someone donated a car.  Here I am as heat winner in a '73 Cougar that truly deserved to die!   There is nothing like the feeling of throwing a car in reverse and aiming for other cars!

Note- We ran the "Kill Russia" theme the week they shot down a Korean airliner that strayed into their air space.  Got a standing ovation!

And this is where I met Dave Burket way before we were into model cars!

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2015 by Tom Geiger

[ToyLvr]

One of them, before the seat belt law seeing how many kids you could put in a Matador wagon for a Dew run down to Stuckey's. Fall of 82. 

Mostly any time in a car before you were 18 and no parents was a good time. 

Had similar good time in my '62 Corvair coupe during lunch time. I think we got eight (8) or nine (9) in it one day, but hard to operate stick shift with someone (female) sitting on my lap. This took place in mid-70s before seatbelt laws, and before the stupid schools administrators decided to make our school a "closed campus".

[thatz4u]

as a teenager, was thumbing a ride with a buddy, heard a well tuned engine in the distance. next a big chrome grille was reflecting the sunlight, the car slowed to a stop. got my first ride in a Duesenberg..

later in life, got to sit in a Bentley, owned by the Beatles.

life really is like a box of chocolates.....

[ChrisBcritter]

As lone as we're mentioning car-stuffing, there was the time in early 1982 when I and ten other people squeezed into my '74 Coupe deVille in Querétaro, Mexico for a ride to the nearby water park...

[charlie8575]

I didn't know a Roadmaster would even FIT on our back roads, Charlie!

Did you meet up with our own VW Dave at he Saratoga Auto Museum? .. his place of employment, lucky guy.

 

I

You'd be very surprised. It might not be as tossable as your Mini, but B-bodies do very nicely on back roads driven intelligently. With that same car, I ended up going down Adams Rd. in Savoy. That was one of my LEAST fun experiences! I had to stop three or four times to rest the brakes, and when I finally got back to Adams on Rt. 8, I pulled into McAndrew and King Buick-GMC and let the brakes cool for a solid 45 minutes and looked at the cars. I could literally see a red glow on parts of the wheel assembly. 

Didn't know he worked there. Haven't been back since, waiting for another exhibit of interest, but I would like to go back sometime. It's a very nice museum.

Charlie Larkin

[slusher]

Honestly cruising around town in my 77 Dodge pickup with the window down and the radio playing and also listening to my dual exhaust with glass packs.  That was in 86 and 87. Man i wish i was 20 again...  

[Jantrix]

Probably back in the late 80's when my pal Kurt and I would go off-roading at a place called the Powerlines, in Oldsmar, FL. He had a very nice '73 F150 and was a very good driver. It was a very low lying area, with lots of standing water and mud. We spent several Saturdays out there until a hidden stump among the undergrowth made a mess of the front tie rod and rear driveshaft. We pulled the driveshaft and limped it home in 4high with the front wheels toed in a bit. 

[Jeff Johnston]

So for you Corvette enthusiasts please don't freak out...this was built in 1980 out of what was a very rough 65 Corvette.  Who knew in 1980 what would happen to the value of the 60's ere Corvettes.  This was my uncles car,and it had so much torque....like space shuttle kind of torque.  I drove this car for 10 days back in 1985 due to the generosity of my uncle.  I was a 20 year old kid...  At a dollar per gallon, I ran 125 bucks of gas through this car in 10 days, all after work.  

I had a XJ12 kind of taunting me on the strip in Ithaca NY.  We stopped side by side at a stop sign, and I took off the line so fast that the Jag never had a chance.  I pulled into a spot about 5 miles down the road to get some food, and the guy pulled in behind me and said he'd never seen a street car take off that fast.  He was shocked to learn it was a very built 350.  He figured it to have a 396 or 427 in it.    

Folks...this cart was just stinkin' fast.  Stop light to Stop light fast.  1/4 mile fast.  I've owned and driven many fast carts.  Nothing even comes remotely close to the raw torque this car had. 

It was the most fun I ever had in a car, and it lasted 10 days.

[Jmaracing]

Racing my 87 grand national at atco raceway during ford vers Buick event. That's always fun!!!

[ZTony8]

I thought of something else that should qualify as "fun in a car".

One day,when my daughter was very young we were in the car and she asked me how a traffic light worked.Seizing the opportunity for some humor I told her that Traffic Light Munchkins lived in the lights.I said that they would count off X number of cars and then flip a switch to change the lights.Little did I know that she believed me and it wasn't until a few years later when she was in grade school that her classmates told her the truth.I believe she was profoundly embarrassed.

Edited August 21, 2015 by ZTony8

[blunc]

there was this time when I was in a local Pontiac car club where a fellow member and I were returning from a meeting and we decided to "let the dogs run".

I had a '68 Firebird with a 400/turbo-400 from a junkyard Bonneville, bone stock but well cared for, I had put a Thermoquad on it (yup, you read that right, I knew how to work on them without ruining them) because most people back then were throwing them away, and my buddy had a '73 Lemans with a warmed up 455 (but in my opinion rather under carburated...he should have had at least a 750cmf carb on it but had a lower end Holley)

We were pretty even till a little over the century mark, both wide open throttle and I started pulling ahead, this all happened in less than a mile.

Fortunately, the reservation cops were elsewhere that night.

This event happened in this car:

 

 

[Drake69]

I thought of something else that should qualify as "fun in a car".

One day,when my daughter was very young we were in the car and she asked me how a traffic light worked.Seizing the opportunity for some humor I told her that Traffic Light Munchkins lived in the lights.I said that they would count off X number of cars and then flip a switch to change the lights.Little did I know that she believed me and it wasn't until a few years later when she was in grade school that her classmates told her the truth.I believe she was profoundly embarrassed.

LOL....

I told my sister something similar to that when I was picking her up from our grandmothers (we're 11 years in age difference and I was 19 at the time...). She had asked me how does the light know how to change when cars were there, and I told her there was one person in every state responsible for pushing a button when a hidden camera in the light saw a car rolling up....

One person...

...in every state...

...watching thousands of cameras...

...one in each direction...

...of each traffic light...

...for every intersection...

...in every town and city...

...of that state....

And they got paid millions of dollars for that job.

Guess what she told mom and dad she wanted to be when she grew up?

 

Oops.... 

[Agent G]

After a decade or more of driving less than adequate Detroit iron while on duty, I received a '94 Chevrolet Caprice with the LT1 engine. The first time I dropped the hammer on that big wonderful beast I was sold.

G