Birth of the Blue Missile

Thanks for the encouragement;


The next time I got together with the gang again is when they decided it should be called the blue missile. After that I got a set of aluminum mags and a set of M-50s for the rear. It still had the drums on the back and I have to assume it was the large bolt pattern the mags had the three position inserts for the lugs and they were on the largest position. It also had an 8 ¾ rear with a 3.23 diff. The tires did rub a little so I also did what everybody at the time did and put on a set of air shocks and jacked it up a little in the back. I also had Tommy put a B&M auto/man shift kit in the tranny. I also put in what at the time was cutting a edge stereo, a quadraphonic eight track player, with either Zepplin, Hendrix, Deep Purple playing at deafening levels, or John Mayall to which I was constantly Jamming on harp while driving with the other hand. My avatar is the car at this stage. Oh I also still had the Duster front plate from the dealer. I used some of the extra blue paint and painted the ‘duster’ and lettering blue. I also painted the side emblems and the tail emblem that say Duster blue inside.

It was also at that point that I got involved with electronics. I put together an alarm system using an old siren/radio unit out of a trashed highway patrol car. There was lead foil protection on all of the windows, and a round key to arm and disarm it on the side by the driver’s door. It had mercury switches for tilt and bump and a momentary panic switch in the ashtray with the sliding door behind the shifter. We used to call that switch the South Florida Idiot Horn.

Now let me explain.
Even in the 70s when the roads were not that crowded some people drove like real idiots. There is a traffic maneuver that has become known as the ‘Cuban Glide’. This is when you cross five lanes of traffic at full speed without signaling from left to right at almost a ninety degree tangent to traffic to exit the freeway. Well when it became obvious that there was a cluster of folks trying to behave in such a fashion that danger was imminent I would hit that momentary switch and let a short ‘WHOOP’ and everybody would act like sane drivers for a minute or so until they could figure out where the cop was. By that time I had cleared the situation and was on my way with no harm. Let me say I never pretended to be cop or harass anyone. This was defensive tool only.

OK there was this one time. I was following behind Bob and one his friends, we were traveling to a gig together and I was behind them and I leaned on the SFIH . Bob new very well who it was, but his friend didn’t and tossed his lid out the window. Bummer. That never happened again! Lesson well learned.

Back to the electronics.
It was a little later that I decided that I was going to fulfill my love of driving and take some long distance cruses. So I would need a CB radio, no cell phones yet. I bought a Lafayette electronics CB radio that looked like a carphone and installed it with a single trunk mounted antenna. I mounted the radio to the console on the passenger’s side within my reach. It worked well for short distance talking on the highway.

We the three musketeers, Larry, Bob and myself spent much time zipping around Miami Beach in the duster. One of our challenges in life was to see exactly how fast we could go and still get the quarter in the basket for the Broad Causeway toll. Thirty-five Mph was my best, there were no gates and if you threw it ahead of you enough as you went through you could watch it turn green as the tollbooth faded in the rearview mirror. One of the other pleasures in life was a road called Pinetree drive. It is a winding divided road that goes the full length of Miami Beach on the mainland side of the intercoastal waterway. There were never any cops, only a few houses at that time and a blast to go eighty or ninety around the curves. Larry would drive it in his bug like a madman but the duster was more fun and a lot less scary.

Captin: one of great delemmas here in feeding the monkeys is that there are too many monkeys that will see then do. I'm really having to balance what I write with dicsretion. You see I work for God and Sons now!
Andrew