Does that Chevelle have a centerline black rally stripe from front to rear? Can’t tell from the angle in that photo.
In the late '60s, I friend who returned from military service in Vietnam built his dream car with a '67 Chevelle.
His $100 offer under a magnet on the dash required the rider to put their $20 under the magnet too. He said the $20 paid for his time, his fuel, and his tires… No one ever took his $100.
Even Google Knows about Vinny Filippello and his “Hairy Canary”. On Saturday night you would find Vinny and all the Hot Cars in the Albany area at Gate Way Shopping Center waiting for the 12 Midnight shift change of the Albany Police… At around 11:30 the cars that were going to race met at the nearby Arterial bypass where a 1/4-mile “track” had been laid out… They would race there for about an hour before the Police Grave shift hit the road.
And a Facebook Posting…
Bets?
I don’t get that part.
You really do have a Neanderthal brain, in part. Anyone with European heritage almost certainly has Neanderthal ancestors. Not a bad thing, BTW. Neanderthals and ■■■■ sapiens interbred and the best features of both branches of humanity ended up in us.
That might explain the superiority complex many of us with European heritage possess, and the colonial aspirations of many of our ancestors.
Through the grace of G o d mine was already suppressed and under control before my teens.
People of ancestry from all world continents possess both the best and worst attributes of humanity.
Just to make a correction … The widebody ■■■■ packs came with a 3.09 rear gear with an automatic tranny. My widebody ■■■■ pack came with 3.90 rear gears with a 6-speed manual.
I saw the build sheet, it came with the 3.90 rear gear… It was either an option or standard on some of the 2022 models…
I remember cause he was questioning why it didn’t have the 3.09 like the drag pack 1320 ScatPack with the same engine and trans, since it was quicker in the 1/4 mile… I never did confirm what the drag pack 1320 rear gear was though
But yes, it did have a 3.90, not the 3.09 rear gear, it was crazy quick/fast for a N/A car…
That is strange. I have a 2022 also with 20k in options. from everything I have researched it should have the 3.09 with an automatic. did he buy it used? if so, maybe the former owner added it. If he bought it New it is possible they made a mistake at the factory and put it in. I guess anything is possible and your friend got lucky.
Stellantis Media - 2022 Dodge Challenger / Challenger SRT Fact Sheet
Brand new… Trust me, he was confused also, cause he had thought the same thing from everything he had read, we had a long debate about it having the 3.90 out back, he had read up about them all… It could have been a special request that the buyer went a different direction or something, I don’t know how or why it ended up that way, but I do remember reading about some others talking about a few of the autos having the 3.90’s also… It was $57K from what I remember…
The $100 magnet bet was that if you could reach up and pull the $100 bill out from under the magnet it was yours… The conditions were you had from the moment that Vinny “Dropped the Hammer” (let the clutch out) until he shifted into second gear. You had to put up $20 for your half of the bet… Your losses were to help pay for the abuse to his car, and that is why you had to put a $20 bill under the magnet too… So, if you could reach up and retrieve the dollar bills under the magnet, you won the $100 and you retrieved your $20 bill too. No won this bet while I was still around… I joined the Air Force in 1971, so I do not know how much longer this went on.
For the uninitiated like yourself, the acceleration in Vinny’s car was nothing like you imagine when you accelerate hard in your own car… You have to take the whole situation into account. $20 then was two-day’s pay at minimum wages…
Being inside the Canary (with open headers) was an overwhelming, physical assault on your body where the noise and vibrations reached unbelievable levels.
The noise was a deafening roar, it was not just loud; it was the loudest thing you would ever experience.
The engine produced sound pressure waves so powerful that came through the floorboards they made your chest pound.
The vibrations were incredibly intense, I can only describe as “shaking your eyeballs out of your head” or “rattling your internal organs”.
Then, the car launches forward with such brutal acceleration you are pinned to the seat and making it impossible for anyone to lean forward and grab the money…
Finally, how did I know Vinny, we both worked at Orange Motors, a Ford Dealership on Central avenue in Albany, NY. He was a Truck Mechanic and I was a New Car Prep Mechanic. Back then, no one had thought up the slogan, “Quality is Job 1” yet… so I had lots to do before a new car went on the lot…
Do what myself and others do here: type the blocked out item like T H I S .
You’ll defeat the lill black squares!
Your description reminds me of my first flight ten years ago in a Boeing 777 - not just any triple-seven but the “ER” 300, with the massive GE-90 110-115,000lb thrust engines on it!
Not kidding, you look at the engines on that bird they mean business. You could just about fit a two-lane country road through the nacelle (the shiny casing with the airline logo inside of which the engine itself resides).
On the runway at EWR, lined up for takeoff, I hear a low rumble, and the engines rev up, then hold at a certain RPM. We’re just starting to roll when…
WHHOOOOO!!! Cockpit sets takeoff thrust and I feel the vibration through every fibre of my body! My b u t t , back, and my head are pinned back against the seat for about 5-10 seconds until the inertia catches up. Overhead I can hear every carry-on shifting toward the back of the bins. No more than 30 seconds later we’re rotating up away from New Jersey.
The power-to-weight ratio on those 777s is awesome. It’s a relatively quiet roar, not a buzzz or whine like you might hear in an old 727 or DC-8, and I’m used to, and actually look forward to the takeoff experience in the 777.
What a great description!
There is also the competing interests of self preservation versus the $100. Instinctively reaching for the “Jesus handle”… ![]()
Not to mention that you only have what 2 seconds maybe to react, overcome the rapid acceleration and try to reach the dash, well depends on gearing, but I hit 6,000 rpms (before the rev limiter kicks in) at 40 mph, so you would have to grab the money before I hit 40 mph, not very likely, heck it’s hard enough slamming the shifter in that short of time… lol…
Trust me, I’ve bounced off the rev limiter a few times trying to hit 2nd…
If running a 4.10 4.30 or even a 4.56 out back, now you have even less time to react, now your under 2 seconds…
My last return from SEA was in a C141, maybe the pilots were taking it easy, seemed we would run out of runway before lifting off. Much faster takeoff in a civilian passenger jet.
Not to mention that you only have what 2 seconds maybe to react, overcome the rapid acceleration and try to reach the dash,
When a person accepted the $100 challenge, it was more than a 2 to 3-second ride. They got to go along as a passenger when Vinny street raced on the 1/4-mile strip on the Arterial by-pass. So probably to most of them it was worth it for the ride of their lifetime, especially when a lot of them could only spin their tires doing a buttonhook with their father’s Chrysler New Yorker…
For the uninitiated, doing a “button-hook” in a car is usually only done with a car with an automatic transmission. The driver would slam the car into reverse while flooring the gas, then they would quickly slam the car into drive. Back then there were no interlocks to prevent a transmission from being shifted into and out of gear when the engine is racing.
As the vehicle changes direction from reverse to forward motion, the initial tire marks in the reverse direction and the subsequent forward acceleration tire marks form a shape that resembles a hook or buttonhook.
In the graphic below, the car is headed towards the Right as indicated by the Arrow… At point “A” the driver floors the gas pedal and slams the car into reverse, and it starts leaving a tire mark in reverse… At Point “B”, the driver quickly slams the transmission into Drive. Depending on the tires and speed of the vehicle at the time, there may not be a break in the tire marks as the transmission shifts from Reverse into Drive. Sometimes the mass of the tires allows the tires to keep spinning momentarily until they start spinning forward. At Point “C”, the car is leaving tire marks in forward.
This is one the most abusive uses of a car short of using the car to create a back entrance in the Garage where a wall once stood…
Hey, @TwinTurbo does the choice of cars in this graphic make your heart cry out, “NO!!!”? ![]()
Summer tires don’t crack when cold, the rubber gets hard resulting in less traction. So he can drive without worrying about damaging the tires.
Me, I’d buy a set of high performance all season tires. I bet he won’t notice any loss of performance.
Agree. I bought a new 2014 Focus ST late winter that came standard with summer tires. I wasn’t going to bother switching out tires with a month left of winter. No cracking but traction in snow was poor. I replaced them with all seasons the following winter as I determined I didn’t have any place to store 4 tires in my apartment.
At extremes like .90g force the all seasons would not hold like the summers but at less than that I didn’t notice a difference.
That can be true. The Bridgestone “all-season” tires (I don’t recall the model)* that came with my 2002 Outback were outright hazardous during the winter, and they weren’t particularly good in rain during the warmer months.
- I just remembered the model. It was the Potenza Re-92. Some internet digging turned-up a lot of reviews stating that this “all season” tire was mediocre–at best–on wet roads, and that it was really poor on winter road surfaces. One review echoed my opinion exactly:
" These tires are flat out terrible in the wet , and near useless in any kind of snow"
I had Potenzas once. Never again. You summed them up well.



