You NEVER forget your first.
Yeah, I know the above is the cliche` of all cliche`s, but in THIS case, it’s also 100% the truth. Regular readers of this blog by now are quite familiar with my {ahem!} offbeat passion for hot cars / trucks. Meaning that the weirder and wilder vehicular types appeal to me, more so than the run-of-the-mill sports / muscle cars. Add in my mania for “Q-ships” - cars or trucks that are literally wolves in sheep’s clothing - and you’ve pretty much covered all the bases of my automotive interests. Over the years, I’ve made many mentions {and posted at least 4 complete blogs} of nearly all such fun vehicles I’ve either owned or known about. Everything from my ‘76 Super-Duty Formula Firechicken - er, Firebird, to my late, lamented Explorer Sport “TR,” has been given its’ due on these very humble pages. The only exception thus far being the very vehicle that realized virtually every single one of my gear-head obsessions - all rolled together in a single juicy package, no less - in the first place.
Until now, that is.
That’s right, Boys and Girls - the time has finally come to tell the tale of the very first new car I ever helped to buy; my beloved 1987 Monte Carlo LS, forever famous as the original “Old Blue.” At the time of his purchase, I had absolutely no inkling of the multiple impacts the unassuming little Navy-blue coupe pictured below would soon visit on me. Oh hell no - back then, I was just trying to achieve a decent compromise with my Dad about a vehicle we would be co-owners of; a pretty big deal for an eighteen year old. I wanted something that would perhaps be a bit of fun, yes, but I also didn’t want to risk souring my situation by insisting on something overtly “special,” like an Iroc-Z Camaro, or the like. Little did I know that the “compromise” that was eventually reached would actually turn out to be something VERY special, indeed.
The late fall of 1986 found me riding fairly high; five months beyond my ultimate parole from high “screwel,” I was just beginning to establish myself as a fully professional concert musician {of the blues / bar-band variety}. Concurrently, my Dad was contemplating at least partial retirement after his own three and a half decades in the workforce. The kicker for both of us was that Dad felt it was new car time, AND time for me to learn the proper way to buy said new car. He sweetened the pot by suggesting I be made co-owner at the outset; that way, there’d be virtually no hassles about ownership changes when he did fully retire, plus I’d be getting invaluable first-hand experience in purchase negotiations, car payments, insurance, etc. as a double-coupon. The entire notion was typical of my Dad - shrewd, yet incredibly compassionate at the same time. And I went for it, hook, line, and bait-shop!!
With Dad’s Grand Plan now on the table, we soon moseyed down to the Jim Butler Chevrolet showroom in Sunset Hills. Once inside, I made a beeline straight to a rather handsome seafoam-green Caprice station wagon, whilst Dad began to give a gorgeous white Monte Carlo Super Sport AeroCoupe the once-over. I know, I know - conventional wisdom all but demanded I be the one drooling over the factory hotrod instead of Dad, but for once I was being practical. The new ride first and foremost had to be able to comfortably haul my drum kit, as well as being good on gas, cheap on insurance, yadda-yadda, blah-blah, woof-woof. At that time, I was literally running the wheels off the family’s well-worn 1974 Chevelle Malibu wagon that had been given to me as a “sweet 16” birthday gift, hence my practical mindset. Although the AeroCoupe WAS sexy as all get-out, I just didn’t see it as an effective grunt-buggy to carry any kind of payload other than passengers. Coupled with its’ $22,000 sticker price - a good three grand OVER the wagon’s $19k - to me there was just no way in hell the deal could ever be practical, in the long run.
Dad basically agreed, but the seed had already been planted in his mind. He suggested we look at the stock of the regular Monte Carlos on hand, which our sales rep said numbered an even half-dozen to choose from. Tellingly, Dad didn’t include the stock of wagons in his suggestion. Thus, we followed our quietly eager sales rep outside to where the Monte Carlos were. Two were written off immediately; a red non-SS Sport Coupe on gaudy wire wheels, and a grey Luxury Sport on plain stamped steel wheels that had been used as a lot-demo for the previous three months - to the tune of 15,000 miles on the odometer already. Two more were written off ‘cause Dad wanted a V6 for the better gas mileage it offered. Which left two choices - a Sport Coupe on plain unadorned wheels, painted in the same distinctive shade of chocolate brown used on all St. Louis County Police vehicles of the day; and his litter-mate, a certain handsome blue devil riding on VERY dignified Chevy Rallye wheels. Both Montes were Luxury Sports with V6’s, and both were all but begging us for an immediate test-drive.
In no time at all, we were handed the keys to the brown one; Dad handled the outbound half of the drive, and I did the return trip back to the lot. We were both impressed by how peppy the 4.3 litre V6 was, as well as being knocked sideways by the great handling as well - especially the brakes, which seemed to almost anticipate any demands asked of them. The test-drive also made me completely forget about my criteria of drum-hauling capacity, once I saw how surprisingly roomy the interior actually was. Ergo, test-drive over, things quickly boiled down to the color, which Dad left as my choice to make. The sales rep said the blue one had the exact same equipment as the brown one, so it took me all of about ten seconds to claim Blue for adoption. Dad asked about the trade-in credit we’d get from our pair of old clunkers, and the final negotiations and paperwork - complete with me as co-signer on everything - went from there.
Two days later, we bade farewell forever to our clapped-out ‘74 Mercury Marquis Brougham, and equally-trashed ‘80 Olds Omega, and proudly drove our new Monte Carlo Luxury Sport home for the very first time. My Mom fell in love with Blue at first sight, and both Dad and I were quite happy with him to boot, so the seal really did seem to be set on the whole kit and kaboodle, or so we thought. Almost immediately, Dad and I began to notice some unusual features Blue sported; features that we missed during the once-over and test drive of his brown sibling. The first thing was Blue’s 140mph speedometer with an odd “CERTIFIED” badge placed on the equator of the gauge just above the odometer, and the companion tachometer that redlined at an incredible 7500 rpm’s. Keep in mind that late 1986 was the tag-end of the federally mandated 55mph national speed limit; virtually all American cars save the Chevy Corvette built from roughly 1978 onwards had speedos that topped out in the 80-85mph range, and tachs that didn’t go above 6000 rpm’s thanks to restrictive “lo-po” {low-performance} tuning that effectively acted as an ad-hoc governor on the engine and transmission.
The next discovery was made when I gave Blue his first coat of Turtle Wax a couple of days after his arrival. I was stunned to see Blue had not one, but TWO angled exhaust pipes that discreetly dumped out, one on either side, behind the rear Tiger Paws!! Since the twin pipes were made of ordinary galvanized steel as opposed to being chrome-finished or at least chrome-tipped, AND they dumped out either side at an angle instead of exiting straight out the back underneath the rear bumper like the SS AeroCoupe’s exhaust did, they were very easy to miss at a casual glance. It began to dawn on me that perhaps, just perhaps Blue was NOT the ordinary “entry-level” vehicle that his basic dress otherwise suggested. I compared notes with Dad, who wasted no time in pulling Blue’s paperwork out of the filing cabinet.
After several minutes of close scrutiny, Dad pointed out an anomaly - Blue’s final sale price included a whopping “$2500 special dealer-credit” charged against a mysterious equipment package called “9C1.” Neither Dad nor I could figure out just what the hell the “9C1” package consisted of; for some unknown reason it was not specifically itemized like all the rest of Blue’s features were. It was at this point that Dad took the obvious next step, and quickly rang up our sales rep over at Jim Butler Chevrolet. A ten minute conversation ensued; when Dad hung up the phone, there was a quiet smile on his face as he began to clue me in about all this “9C1” business - which triggered several revelations I’ll never forget until the day I assume room temperature for good.
In a nutshell, Blue’s 9C1 package was something straight out of The Blues Brothers - “Cop motor” {a well-tuned and completely un-governed Vortec 4.3 litre V6 that churned out a healthy 235 brake horsepower, a good 75 ponies over the civilian 160-horse rating}; “cop brakes” {four wheel discs, with an early ABS to contain the spirited energy of the 2.75 Positraction-equipped rear axle}; “cop suspension” {Chevy F41, with beefed-up shocks, thicker sway bars front and rear, a driveshaft yoke, and a transmission scattershield}; “cop radiator” {extra capacity with two electric fans and bottom skid plate}; fuel injected with dual exhaust so it’ll run good {and FAST} on regular unleaded……..” The CERTIFIED badge on Blue’s speedo meant that both it and the tach had been specially calibrated to ensure that their readings were 99.98 % accurate at all times, so as to be admissible evidence in court, if need be. Hell, even the premium Delco AM/FM/compact-disc sound system {with SIX speakers} was attributed to cop-origin, as it fully occupied the rather large opening on the lower dash originally meant to comfortably house all the components of the modern-day police radio, and then-rudimentary computer equipment Big Johnny Law was just starting to get into.
Needless to say, I was blown away by it all. See, 1986 was also the dawn of the “Stealth” Highway Patrol experiment that put unadorned but seriously hopped-up 5.0 Mustang GT’s and Z/28 Camaros on the tarmac as THE last word in pursuit vehicles. Blue and his brown brother had been ordered by the St. Louis County Police force as just such vehicles, but the Missouri Highway Patrol quickly stepped in and nixed the plan, claiming “sole jurisdiction” rights with regards to pursuit capability. Wanting to avoid nasty disputes with Jefferson City at all costs, the “County Mounties” hastily agreed to scrap their pursuit-vehicle program before it got started, bestowing on Blue and his sibling instant orphan status, and the potential of being loss-leaders in Butler Chevy’s inventory, thanks to all the specialty equipment the general public might balk at having to pay a bit extra for.
Hence that hefty dealer-credit that went along with the 9C1 package; even if Blue and Brown remained hard to sell lot-orphans, Jim Butler Chevrolet still wouldn’t be out that much profit on both cars and their special equipment, just because the original deal got squashed. So as things turned out, Butler Chevrolet’s “loss” became our “gain” - and I suddenly found myself the proud co-owner of my first true Q-ship. A Q-ship that could literally blow the doors off the AeroCoupe that began this odyssey, I might add. That’s not merely an idle boast, Boys and Girls. A couple months after Blue’s purchase, I bumped into one of my gear-head buddies from high screwel, a chap by the name of Mike L. Mikey just so happened to be driving a silver Monte Carlo SS AeroCoupe his Dad bought a couple weeks previously. He wasted no time in giving me a metric ton of {good-natured} hassle, claiming that his “Silver Bullet” could eat Blue “for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner” without breaking a sweat, or needing to go above second gear.
I let him natter on for a good long while, making sure that the rest of our running-buddies knew exactly what was going down. After three straight nights of Mikey’s Bravo Sierra, I finally called his bluff, suggesting we repair immediately to the good old Chesterfield Airport road to settle the issue for good. Mikey unhesitatingly agreed, so we split with about eighteen others accompanying us. Once there, Mikey resumed his abuse of me, saying that after he won the race I’d be smart to put some training wheels - and perhaps a small jet engine - on Blue, if I REALLY “wanted to run with the big boys!” I just smiled evilly and snarled “Alright, let’s see you walk it like you talk it, Chump.” Mikey laughed some more, but the spectators with us seemed to be stunned by the unmistakably deathless tone in my voice, which confidently promised a rare shit-storm of the highest magnitude. In short order, the distance was measured off; the start and finish lines set; and two timekeepers with stopwatches were installed at the finish line. Come the traditional foglight / low-beam / high-beam “Christmas Tree” start, Mikey took me off the line and got three full car-lengths ahead of me, before we could grab second gear.
Second gear was when Blue woke up, and BOY did he ever put on a show, once he did. Keep in mind that my ride was originally built for sustained high-speed pursuit, whilst Mikey’s flashier AeroCoupe was essentially a dressed-up commuter vehicle, complete with 85mph non-certified speedo, tame gearing, and six grand tach monitoring a governed 180-horse engine. What’s more, whilst Blue’s 0-60mph time was a rather leisurely six seconds, his 60-120mph time was a mere TWO seconds. As such, I easily caught up well before the halfway point, and flashed right by him like an Exocet missile, crossing the finish line several car-lengths in front. Since we had agreed to a best-of-three contest, we duelled two more times - and both times had the same results, with me gaining a half car-length cushion with each repetition. Needless to say, in the end Mikey knew his big mouth had earned him this rather vicious bitch-slapping. He wisely made like a clam, and ceded the floor to me after we finished.
I quickly flashed him a smug Cheshire, and said “Man alive, Dude!! That jalopy of yours ought be timed with a CALENDAR, instead of a stopwatch!! What the hell made you think your heap could even come close to matching wheels with MY lil ole ride? You been smoking them banana peels again, or what?” Mikey took his lumps manfully, and remained a good sport for the duration. He jokingly said “I’m just glad this wasn’t for the pinks - my old man would kill me for being so stupid! Our race was a lesson I’m glad to have learned the hard way.” This was the point when I finally came clean in public about Blue’s “Stealth weapon” secret; up until then I had remained absolutely mum on the subject, outside of my family. Tossing Mikey a beer, I concluded “You basically never had a chance from the start, Dude. And it was just plain dumb luck for me to buy a modern-day COPO car.” LSS, that was that, and Mikey and I remained good friends for many years afterwards. What’s more, Blue had more than earned his permanent, quick-drying, gilt-edged seal of approval as a bona-fide Q-ship.
Postscript-wise, Blue went on to lead a pretty good life, performing yeoman double-duty between Dad and me for his first five years, then serving me well exclusively for the next eight or nine. He had just a tick under 175k miles on his clock, and the faint beginnings of rod-knock when I reluctantly traded him in on a ‘96 Pontiac Bonneville SE - also painted dark blue - a mere two months after the turn of the century. Item: although the St. Louis County Police “stealth pursuit” project was stillborn, Blue and his brown brother nevertheless served as quiet prototypes for a half-dozen or so 1988 Caprice four-door sedans that came online the following spring, one and all in full cop dress and markings, and carrying identical drivelines to the ones fitted to Blue and Brownie. Ironically, I never took Blue to a proper track; all his races were of the “Fast-&-Furious” variety, a couple decades before the phenomenon found a mass audience. Blue had a mere three losses, just to keep us honest about the rest of the three-dozen or so other runs we ultimately made together. All were great fun, and all were poignant personal reminders of Our Lord’s great Kindness; with my humble lil’ Q-ship retaining his “outlaw cop” stature from beginning to end.
I feel well and truly Blessed for the experiences, which ain’t a bad note to end this tale on, dig?
Like I said in the beginning, you NEVER forget your first!!
More shortly………..
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