The Kid and His Goat

In the fall of 1975, I was seventeen and went to a vocational technical high school where I studied auto mechanics and girls. I had shoulder length hair usually covered by a blue Navy watch cap (as a tribute to my hero of years earlier.) Being five foot eight inches in height and about 130 pounds I needed some type of female attraction.
The 1968 VW Beetle that I drove wasn’t really “chick magnet”. So, I found a 1965 Pontiac GTO, or “Goat”, sans entire drive train. (Just as the term “Pony Car” describes the Ford Mustang, the term “Goat” was moniker for the Pontiac GTO) I bought a 400 c.i. at the local auto reclamation center. It had been in a demolished 1972 Lemans and had low mileage but had been sitting for about a year. I found a 4.11 rear end gearing from a fellow motor head but ran out of funding before I could secure a decent 4 speed transmission. Through an extensive word-of-mouth search, I found a 3 speed that bolted up (don’t remember the model or what it came out of) and was told by the owner that I could use it until I found a 4 speed. The interior of the car was all original and in fairly good shape. So, after enlisting the help of a friend who could weld and braze, the floor was rebuilt, and other minor body work done. (I should mention at this point that this car was used at the local drag strip and was plastered with stickers on the outside.)
After about two weeks of work and scrounging for parts, at times not always legally, I was ready to put the pieces together. I didn’t even have enough money left to tear down the motor to see what needed replaced or was broken or bent. I got the motor and the rest of the drive train installed, drained all the old motor oil and flushed the old coolants as best I could and replaced both. The time came for the motor to return to life.
My heart was beating like a virgin in a brothel on two for one night. I remember testing the clutch about a dozen times, making sure the transmission was in neutral about a dozen more. I remember thinking…”I was going to burn up the road and have several girls on each arm.” Pretty high expectations for a scrawny long-haired kid.
My mouth was dry, and I spit out my chew of Skol as my shaking hand reached the key on the dash. The hood was up, and I could see the top of the Holly 650 carburetor from between the hood and the cowl.
My buddy was standing by watching for the mammoth cast iron beast to, once again, return to life in a thundering roar that could only be matched by the mighty hammer of Thor. This was it. Every cent I had was in this car.
A quick tap on the key told me the motor was free. Ok, now this time it’s go or no. Slowly the beast turned over at first, as if the first few revolutions were just an awakening. Then faster and faster the crankshaft moved each piston in their respective cylinders. Wider and wider my eyes grew as anticipation made way for what was about to awaken all Hell and its demons. Then suddenly “barroom pufft”. “Did someone fart?” Oh no!! It was a backfire and the big four-barreled carburetor is spewing flames! I removed my foot from the pedal and cranked the motor until all flame was inhaled by my metal monster just as the battery had given its last amperage and died.
Rick (my buddy) ask me if I had the gas pedal floored while I was “turning the thing over”. “Ummm.. probably” came my sheepish answer. “Well don’t!!” came his strongly worded reply. “You wan’a burn down my parents’ house AND your car?” With that thought we determined to charge up the battery enough to try it again. This time with no throttle.
After about an hour or so we returned to our designated positions and try one more time before it got too late. Rick was standing watch and I was at the wheel. Clutch is still working. (Don’t know why I did this it just seemed the thing to do.) Transmission in neutral.
Growl, growl, growl the motor reported its willingness to try. “Give it just a LITTLE gas. Just a little!!” Rick commanded. Growl, growl, growllllll….. BAROOM, BAROOM, BAROOM. She lives!!! It runs!! “Holy crap it works!” I shouted to Rick who was now in a seizure of some sort and pointing at the back of the car. Blue smoke was billowing out of the exhaust as my eyes were burning out of my head and I was choking to the point of losing my supper. We had forgotten to open the garage door enough to run an extended exhaust hose outside.
About the time we managed to find the garage door through the thick blue fog, Ricks dad burst in the garage through the connecting doorway. With tears streaming down his face and a cough like a miner’s black lung he wanted to know if he was about to lose his home and if we had ANY idea just what the hell we were doing. While I was trying to help Rick look for a fan to repel the blinding and noxious fog from his parents garage through my stinging and burning eyes I heard his Dad order that it might be a good idea to “Get that piece of crap out of the garage and shut it the hell off!”
After a few more days of tinkering with the timing and adjusting the carburetor, I had my Frankenstein running fairly good and the climate changing exhaust gasses even died down and all smog warnings were lifted.
All paperwork was up to date and insurance was secured. Now, for her maiden voyage into the world.
My first trip into town with my GTO was on a Saturday night. Up and down Main Street I cruised, and I could see the onlookers gawking at me. I was cool.
Then I began to realize that they weren’t gawking at me. They were laughing. Laughing! At MY GTO and me? Those damn stickers. I looked like a circus wagon and indeed I quickly began to wear the title of “Circus Wagon” everywhere I drove. So, it was for the next few weeks. Smirks and laughter and taunts of “Hey, Circus Wagon!” One day I had heard all the “Circus Wagon” jeers I could stand and ask a taunting driver in a Chevelle SS if he wanted to “run it” “title for title?” He just roared and said he be ashamed to win “that piece of s**t”.
A day or so later I was waiting at a stop light on the boulevard of the nearby town of DuBois. At the time the boulevard had only two stop lights. One at each end of the quarter mile four lane strip which made for some exciting and illegal street drags. But I was in no mood to race and was minding my own business when a punk just as young and scrawny as I pulled up next to me in a rat car Camaro and “gave me the pipes.” Now I knew with the three-speed transmission I could not beat him out of the hole. But I had had enough and besides, when someone gives you the pipes there is only one honorable thing to do. Waiting for the light to go green I revved up the big block motor to the red line and held it there. I could hear the motor rebel just as the light turned green. I side stepped the clutch and was propelled back into the seat. But the Camaro was ahead by about three quarters of a length. I held the pedal hard to the floor never giving any sympathy to my car or her heart. I was well into the red zone once more when I had to shift or scatter the motor over the boulevard. I threw the car into second hard and simply side stepped the clutch pedal once more. Only this time a loud bang came from the rear of my GTO and I lost all control of it. The car whipped broadside and began to travel down the four-lane street that way. White knuckled on the steering wheel I could only hope my car would not catch traction and start rolling down the road. I slid sideways for what seemed like forever, and then it was over. I sat up right in the middle of the road unable to think or move. My car had given me everything it had and broke the rear cross member in the process. The frame had shifted but the rear-end remained attached to the frame, but not by much, and the drive shaft stayed in place somehow also. I had stopped right in front of a grocery store and managed to limp it into their parking lot before the cops found me.
Tempting fate once more and pushing my spent luck, I drove the car ten miles home sideways and steering hard. The next day I told my parents I had had too much trouble with the GTO and was going to sell it. Much to their relief the car was gone forever a few days later and I had the price of a broken-down Circus Wagon in my pocket.
What little hard earned and scrounged money I had put into that car wasn’t even returned by half and my next car was a 1971 Ford Pinto.