A few months back, I was in a rather unfortunate situation. I was out at the desert with friends and, long story short, I broke my left ankle. I was rushed to the emergency room at a nearby hospital (thank you Darin and Chris), and a splint was put on my leg.

I spent the remainder of the weekend watching my friends enjoy their dirt bikes, quads, and sandrails while I pretended I was going to be okay, nursing my wound with Coors Light. The next evening, someone had to drive my truck home and I realized that for a month or two that followed, things were going to change, because I was forced to drive my musclecar everyday.

A recent outing at Willow Springs with the Belvedere, crutches and all.

If you’re wondering what that means, it’s because my 1965 Plymouth is the only vehicle I own that has an automatic transmission, and since I can’t push a clutch with a broken ankle I was grateful that I didn’t buy that four speed Coronet I had looked at when I bought the Belvedere. Very grateful, because renting a car to get me around for two or three months would get expensive.

When I bought the Belvedere more than a decade ago, it was all original and it ran well. But as the saying goes, once you start modifying things then you have to pay more attention to the details – like oil level, coolant level, trans fluid, power steering fluid and brake fluid level. It’s almost a part of the hot rodding process, that once that first performance component is installed the fluid levels begin to act up on you. Parts begin to fail, quality suffers and maintenance becomes a weekly task.

All New Drivetrain

When I first bought the Plymouth, I conned myself into thinking I would only drive it on weekends, or to local cruise nights. That quickly turned into me driving the car only on days that ended with a ‘Y’, as I was driving it to work, to the store, to buy parts for my other cars, and on dates.

Hoisting a polysphere is like hoisting a 440 – they weigh just about the same.

I had begun to realize that I loved driving it, and it didn’t hurt that I got a lot of thumbs-up from people that I drove past. It wasn’t even that awesome of a car – well, from closer than 20 feet, anyway – but everyone thought it was cool. I imagine much of the thrill was because I could finally get out of my own way with V8 power under my right foot. Too many years driving a compact car left me missing the roar of a V8.

I continued to drive the Plymouth regularly, until one day I decided to put in a new engine. I liked the boat-anchor Poly 318 that was in it, so I bought another one and sent that to a shop to be rebuilt with some goodies: .060 pistons, a nice cam, ported and polished heads, and a rare dual quad intake made of unobtanium.  While the engine was in the shop, I had heard of a guy who was selling a rebuilt TF 727 from a 70 E-Body for pretty cheap, so I picked that up.

The built poly in it’s new home, after a few years of waiting patiently.

Then I heard that TTI Exhaust in Corona was looking for a donor car to install a real set of headers for the Poly 318. I say “real” because nobody ever really made a decent set of production headers until TTI bit the bullet. I thought it was pretty cool that I was going to get the coveted “first set” from them.

With a fresh engine in the shop, a new trans being worked over, new headers and a sure-grip sitting on the shelf, I was really looking forward to driving my car again with a fresh, all new drivetrain. That was when gas was still well under four bucks a gallon, and I wasn’t thinking too much about having to drive it every day.

Finally the day came to pick up the engine and the trans, and I got to yank out the old boat anchor and throw in my complete new drivetrain. It all went together pretty well, and I was driving the car that weekend. Within a few months, gas prices grew and threatened to reach 6 bucks by the end of summer, and I was glad I had a compact car to commute in.

Over the past few months, I’ve upgraded the car with a FAST EZ-EFI, Moser Axles, Eaton Detroit Truetrac, and Hellwig sway bars, as well as a disc brake upgrade. It’s a lot more fun to drive, but fill ups are between $60 and $70, so the car didn’t see too much action when I had two economy cars to drive that got twice the gas mileage. But sadly, I didn’t drive it as much as I used to, and even though it sat for almost eight years waiting for the new engine, it sat unused in recent months simply because I had a lot of driving to do with work and school, and gas was killing me financially.

Forced to Drive My Musclecar?

Six weeks in a splint, a few in a cast, and a few more in this lovely color-matched boot.

Then my wonderful weekend at the desert happened and I knew that the Plymouth would become my daily driver for the months that followed. I facetiously say that I was “forced” to drive it, but it doesn’t really take much to get me behind the wheel. Well, scratch that, with a broken ankle and being on crutches it does take a little bit to get me behind the wheel – not mentally, but physically that’s what it took.

When you’re in a musclecar or a hot rod, nobody expects you to go fast, sometimes you can just cruise and other people automatically know that you have power at your disposal, so it sort of makes you feel regal, in a way. Younger kids zip past me in their foreign cars with the fart-can exhaust and it doesn’t even phase me. Other people check out the classic car and give a nod of approval.

I hardly ever get tailgated, and most people know better than to cut me off because the car is so damn big that they know it could crush their import. When I want to get moving, a quick rap on the throttle and I’m a few car lengths ahead. When there’s an overpass, I make sure that I give a quick rap on the throttle just to hear the sound of the dual-exhaust rumble.

Perhaps it’s all in my head, and I’m just trying to make the most of my rather unpleasant situation. I’m just driving my classic car more now, enjoying the ride and watching the fuel gauge drop every time I play with the throttle. Then I look down and see my broken ankle all wrapped up and hear the crutches rattling in the rear seat and realize something: nobody else knows that I’m driving the car because I have to, they all think I’m driving it because I want to and that puts a smile on my face.

And you know what? I do want to drive it, even though I joke about it and claim that I’m forced to drive it, I’m enjoying the hell out of it. I almost forgot how much fun it was because I was too caught up in gas prices and paying bills. It’s just a shame I had to break my ankle to be reminded of this.