Reflections on “The Beast”

“The Beast.” (Photo by the so-called “old guy” long ago at college in 1965.)

The other night (Saturday or Sunday, January 17 or 18, 2009) the national TV news did a report on the new presidential limo, a car affectionately called “The Beast.”
I had a car called “The Beast” (pictured). It was a 1958 fish-mouth Triumph TR3.
It was my first car, and it was an old drag-racer.
It came with an open exhaust, so made an incredible racket.
I got Midas to plumb a muffler into its straight two-inch exhaust pipe, which I called “the organ pipe.”
I also slash-cut the end, bologna style.
There was confusion about the license-plate. It was a “trailed-car” plate, the plate it needed to get towed to drag-races.
I thought it was a legitimate car-plate.
I drove it a long time with that “TC” plate, but in New York; it was a Delaware plate.
It was incredibly strong, and therefore fun.
I creamed a 383 four-speed Plymouth with it once.
A hot-rodding friend at college was impressed, and he had a Chrysler 300 with a 413.
The Beast was a monster, and went like stink.
But I eventually rolled it, breaking off the windshield, and also a steering tie-rod.
Drove it all the way home from college that way, western N.Y. to Wilmington, DE, about 360 miles.
Only the right-front wheel steered; the left-front would follow.
Not much damage from the rollover, and I survived. TRs liked to flip; they were known as coffins.
The fact I’m not paralyzed is cut-away doors.
The new presidential limo is all armor-plate and thick bullet-proof glass.
Unreported is what motor it uses — I’m thinking Big-Block.
It would take that much to drag all that weight around at a good clip; e.g. escaping shoulder-fired missiles.
“The Beast” is a Cadillac, making me wonder if the Cadillac moniker is now “the mark of the beast.”

RE: “Old guy............” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down. I also am the oldest.

“College” was Houghton College in western New York, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it, although I didn’t graduate with their approval. Houghton is a religious liberal-arts college.

“Drag-racing” is side-by-side standing-start to finish over a straight and level quarter-mile.

I called it “the organ pipe” because I like pipe-organs (Houghton had a really great one), and it looked like an organ-pipe. It also made a great sound.

A “383 four-speed Plymouth” is a Plymouth sport-coupe with a 383 cubic-inch V8 engine and a four-speed floor-shifted standard transmission — fairly strong.

A “Chrysler 300 with a 413” is Chrysler’s fabulous 300-series muscle-car; which had the 413 cubic-inch “wedge” engine by then. The first Chrysler 300s had 392 cubic-inch Hemis (“HEM-eee”), and were extremely strong. (The Hemi was so named because it had hemispherical combustion chambers, making it breath better at high speeds.) —My friend’s car wasn’t a Hemi; by then the Hemi was no longer produced. His was about 1961-‘63. The last Hemi 300 was in the 1958 model-year. (The “Wedge” was more normal [not a Hemi, and therefore less expensive to manufacture]. More like the average Detroit V8, yet large in size, and very powerful. His car had two separate four-barrel carburetors on long ram manifolds at each engine-side. [A long ram manifold would force more intake-air/fuel into the engine by air-wave reflection.])

“Cut-away doors” are car-doors cut away down to elbow height.

The Chevrolet “Big-Block” V8 was introduced in the 1965 model-year at 396 cubic-inches. It was made in various displacements: 402, 427 and 454 cubic inches. It’s still made as a truck-motor, but not installed in cars any more; although you can get it as a crate-motor, for self-installation.

“Mark of the beast” is a Biblical term, referring to the end times; when sinners gleefully carry the “mark of the beast” on their foreheads.