Big Block Love

I was a little over a year old when I first drove a car. My parents tell me that they left me in my dad’s 1968 Dodge Coronet at that tender age in the front seat, parked at my grandfather’s farm in Michigan while they popped into the house to grab something. In that short span of time, I put the car into “D”, and it immediately blasted into a nearby haybale.

Since then, I have been a Dodge boy, my first car was a 1986 Shelby Charger (co-owned with my younger brother), I have also had a 1982 Dodge Rampage, another 1986 Shelby Charger, a 2001 Dodge Dakota, but then I went and found a 1966 Dodge Coronet 440 on eBay for a meager $3000 (pictured above). Originally big block car (383 2bbl auto), since replaced with a slightly bigger block 413 from a 1964 New Yorker.

The first time I heard it fire up, I was in love. That car made the garage shake and the owner at the time asked me if I could hear the engine knock. I said, “What?” because I could barely hear him much less the knock. I bought it anyway and drove it 450 miles despite a bad rod bearing; 50 gallons of gas and four quarts of oil later I was home with “The Blue Bomber” parked in front of my town house in Glen Burnie, MD.

While it still had the 413, I remember going to see Starsky and Hutch (with Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller) at the Arundel Egyptian theater and thinking as I was leaving, “I might be able to do that kinda driving with this car…hmm” so I tore out of the lot, fishtailing from stop signs, gawkers staring at me as I went. Yup. It can do that, but it isn’t strictly ‘legal’ (not at all legal really and I do NOT recommend it if you like using your driver’s license to you know…drive). I got comments anywhere I went with the car: thumbs ups, stares, smiles. Nobody protested that it was terrible for the environment. Yeah, the mileage sucked, but it was a heck of a lot of fun! I liked driving it. Even in traffic.

There is a certain lazy power factor to a car that can idle you home. I drove the one-and-a-half mile from work to home and back without ever stepping on the gas. The car would hit 35 at idle. It set off all the car alarms in the parking lot. Scared little old ladies. It was unbelievable the amount of positive attention and the lack of negative that driving that car brought, contrary to when I had my Shelby. That car was a ticket magnet! The cops never gave me a break with that!

We’ve moved around a bit since then and the Bomber has been in storage now since 2005, but I am breaking it out again and hitting the streets with a hand-built 440 six-pack motor. I built this six-pack because I got a phenomenal deal on the manifold and carbs on eBay (not very coincidentally) and my uncle gave me a brand-new cam (still in the box!) he found at a swap meet for five bucks…that just happened to be for a big block six pack. Fate was telling me, “Build it.” So, I did.

My latest plan is to install a radio that only plays Black Sabbath, because this car seems like any other music just wouldn’t be badass enough. To be honest, most of the time I didn’t even listen to the radio when I drove the Coronet though. Primarily because I couldn’t hear anything over the motor. That was okay because my engine sounds sweeter than any music to me.