Muscle Cars

My father and brothers were all gifted with the ability to repair cars no matter how old they were or what was wrong with them mechanically. They could fix them up in no time and have them sounding good as new, sometimes with a little tweaking here and new headers there, better then new.


Because my dad had a garage behind our house that was always filled with someone’s 1972 Olds Cutlass Hurst, 1969 Chevy Nova SS, or Plymouth Fury Sport to this day I am able to identify an older model car’s make, model, and year at a glance. This ability seemed to impress people but seemed like nothing to me, I thought everyone was able to identify a 1970 Mercury Cougar with a 357 Cleveland engine at ten paces. But apparently not everyone can, it might be considered an acquired skill. Although I was never interested in getting my hands under the hood I did like to look there. It was interesting to see the different engine sizes and hear the car run smoothly after a tune-up or the installation of some headers or glass mufflers to a muscle car like a 1974 Plymouth Barracuda with dual exhaust, or maybe a 1968 Chevy El Camino.

Since the age of twelve or thirteen I could drive a standard and loved to drive my brother Dave’s 1971 Ford Mustang with a three-speed transmission through the woods, unbeknownst to my brother I would take it when he was at work and my mom wasn’t home. One time when we were visiting my gram in Six Nations , Dave had gone somewhere with my other brother Wayne Clair and left the Mustang in the drive, the maroon mustang was always calling my name, or so it seemed to me.

My cousin, Didder, and I thought it would be cool to take it for a ride around the Rez. I got to Thomas’ Corner and thought it would be really hip if I did a donut in the middle of the corner. I had done donuts many times in the middle of fields back home and figured it would be no problem, but spinning in circles in a huge open field is much different than doing a donut in the middle of the road , it wasn’t that simple. I ended up flying backward into the ditch, and then the car stalled. It took a while to get it restarted because in my haste to get out of the ditch I flooded the carburetor. I had to wait a while in order to get it started and thought for sure either Dave or my mother would drive by and catch me red-handed and red-faced. I was so glad to finally get the car started but even so it was a bit tricky for me to keep it going as I attempted to rock the car out of the ditch. My cousin wasn’t too pleased with me when I made her get out and push us out of the ditch. Her shoes and legs were all covered in mud from all her exertions and the spinning of the tires. We got enough momentum going to escape the ditch and we made it home before anyone knew we were even gone, or so I thought.

Living on a small Rez doesn’t’ really afford anyone much privacy or anonymity. Everyone knows everyone else, their mother, father, grandparents and all their business. I thought that I had really pulled one over on all parties concerned but not so, by the end of the day both my mother and brother had gotten phone calls about Didder and I being stuck in the ditch up at Thomas’ Corner.

That ended my joy riding in Dave’s mustang after that I think he must have installed a kill switch somewhere because I never could get it started again, with or without the key. My mom wasn’t too happy with my antics either and I got a damn good lickin’ with a switch I had to go and get off the tree myself, a red willow switch. Either way, after that day I limited my joy riding to one of the jalopies out back they were easy to start by touching the right two wires together and I stayed off the road. It was a breeze to get around the Rez through the various trails that wove through the woods, although most of the time I didn’t have a destination in mind I just liked to drive around and do a few donuts out in the fields by myself, relishing that sense of freedom a car, or an old jalopy, could provide me.

To this day I prefer to drive a standard to an automatic transmission, and nothing gives me greater joy than to follow someone driving a 1969 Chevy Malibu SS and hearing the deep rumbling of the engine, and the headers as they lay some rubber. That noise resonates within me and brings back the memories of the old garage behind my old homestead, and the feeling of pure delight that I always got from fast, loud cars. Not loud cars that go boom, but cars with big engines that go VROOM.