My fascination with cars started long ago. Way back before fuel injection, turbo charges and overhead camshafts. Today I live in New York, however I grew up in Narraweena, back then a Housing Commission settlement behind Sydney's Northern Beaches suburb of Dee Why (Australia).

Paul was a year older than I and my brother's friend. When he was old enough to get a license his mother bought him this car. He didn't have a clue about how to drive it or take care of that car. It wasn't long before my brother and I realized that there wasn't another car on the road slower than this and it definitely wasn't cool to be seen in. We knew then that we wanted an automobile that was bold, fast and beautiful, and a Triumph Herald wasn't it.

Not long after we stopped hanging out with Paul so much (I think he got a girl friend), my twin brother and 1 were prone to disappearing over the weekend by hitch-hiking to Chatswood and staying with a new friend. Ted Harvey a black kid who owned a Chrysler Valiant AP5. It was lowered with wide wheels and custom exhaust. We were impressed.

The Monster

Not long after my brother, also Ted, received his driver's license he bought a 4 year old 1963 British racing green Chrysler Valiant S. This model preceded the other Ted's 1964 AP5 though it had the same engine, transmission and suspension. This car was quite something for a family sedan of its time. Its claim to fame was the torsion bar suspension, which made it easy to lower the front-end, and the performance of its Slant-6 engine. 145 hp, 225 Cubic Inch (3.40 Bore x 4.12 Stroke).

Chrysler's Slant-6 engine arrived in Australia with the 1961 Chrysler Valiant. It had the first 101 hp, 170 cubic inch version of the engine. The 145 hp, 225 cubic inch came in the 1962-63 Valiant S Model. Similar cars were sold in the US a year prior badged as Dodge Darts and Plymouth Valiants. The engine was an inline-6 cylinder configured so the engine block is at a 30-degree angle from vertical. It is not an upright engine that was simply installed in a slanted position, It was ingeniously designed this way. The 30° inclination gave the Slant-6 a more compact overall engine package, enabling vehicle stylists to lower hoodlines, and allowed for an engine bay arrangement that significantly shortening the overall length required.

In 1960 compact cars had officially become a new market segment in the US. NASCAR sanctioned a special race exclusively for the little 6 cylinder powered compact cars. The race was held at Daytona and had seven slant six Valiants entered. When the race ended, not only had all seven Slant 6s finished proving their reliability and durability, but they won the first seven places! This type of performance speaks for itself.

Without delving into a personal bio, it's safe to say we spent way too much money hotting up this car, but the resulting monster was quite something. Compression was lifted to 11 to 1 with a shaved head and cams were replaced so the car vamped violently at idle and exploded through the power band. Lowered, Custom exhaust with Ted's own hand-made muffler, race set-up 4 Barrel Holley carburetor and manifold, sports coils and other upgraded electrics. Along with a beefed up clutch that was good for a serious knee tremble at the lights if you didn't opt to put it in neutral.

Fare to say that the standard transmission didn't go the distance and it wasn't long before the car was back on the blocks for another major upgrade –The BorgWarner inline 4 speed gearbox and limited slip diff. Now this 6 cylinder family sedan had fully mutated into something that could be well called a barely street-legal monster and V8 demoralizer.

It was loud, it was relatively fast and it looked mean. The overly wide wheels were painted black and looked like drain pipes of steroids. Most the chrome decals never made it back to the bodywork and neither did the radiator grill. Motorist would usually move over when they saw us in the rearview and heard the tailgating burble behind them.

We would tear around the northern suburbs of Sydney recklessly at dangerous speeds with flagrant disregard for road-rules. Pretty well in the same manner as most New York motorist drive today. We loved it, we laughed way too loudly, way too often and for the most part we came away unscathed.

I don't remember what eventually happen to that car, though I remember we were pulled over more than our fair share and that there is no way authorities would permit such a car on Sydney streets today.

Ironically some 6 years later I purchased the same vintage and model Valiant sedan. I think it was even the same color if I remember correctly, though it was far from the condition of its predecessor proving unreliable, prone to mechanical problems. I don't think I even got round to buying wide wheels for it.

The Wheely

Our pack of teenage rev-head hoons consisted of Ted Harvey, my brother Ted, Steve Hardwick (the true fiend who went on to race motor bikes), myself an a few other guys who's names I don't remember. We packed into 3 cars, the 2 Valiants and Steve's modified Mini Cooper S, and entertained ourselves by terrorizing the unsuspecting public. Delinquent teenagers, what can I say.

One of the key components to our disruption of public order was the wheely. The practice of bringing the revs up considerably above idle and then dropping the clutch violently – Resulted in the screech of smoking ties. I think Ferrari call it "launch control".

The debut of my brother's Valiant in its second incarnation (here after referred to as the monster) was a rendezvous with the gang on Penshurst Street, corner of Victoria Road Chatswood near Ted Harvey's place.

It was time to test just how much the BorgWarner transmission could handle. The now, far lesser, AP5 took off with a squeal and a puff of blue smoke chirping tires into second gear as Ted Harvey nimbly flicked the 3 speed column shift up through the H pattern.

I sat with anticipation in the front passenger seat. My brother Ted brought the revs up to near 3,000 rpm. All eyes turned towards us due to the ferocious roar of the exhaust. Then with the flawless drop of the clutch the limited slip diff commanded both rear tires to cry an unholy scream. I could feel the rear-end begin to float as if it were on water and we barely moved from the parking place. The billowing clouds of blue smoke that poured from the back of the car were only surpassed by the evident panic of every pedestrian in the vicinity.

A combination of fear and delight gripped every muscle in my body as I watched the previous calm of Saturday morning shoppers disperse panic-stricken in every direction bar ours. It was like those moments that precede an accident when everything is in slow motion and the noise seems somehow filter down. Then it all comes rushing back to a fierce real-time reality when Ted finally dropped the revs sufficiently to afford the rear tires some grip, and we violently snaked away from the evident chaos we had caused.

We travelled but a few blocks before we were forced to stop due to our incessant, uncontrollable laughter.

It was and will always be the wheely of the century. It remains to this day indelibly imprinted on my memory, and for me, I knew I could never afford a car anything like the monster, and so went on to ride motorbikes through the remainder of my teenage life.

These days they drive Grand Tourismo on the Play Station, but ya gotta know it ain't the same.

The Loose

To loose it is to get the car so uncontrollably out of shape you either stall, roll or spin-out, or any combination of the 3.

The monster had one minor flaw – It excellerated exceptionally, cornered relatively well on its massive wheels and lowered/roll-bar suspension, but the standard drum brakes left a great deal to be desired – It didn't stop, or rather not so well from speed.

I must commend Steve Hardwick who's tutelage of us young novice drivers was probably responsible for us surviving those reckless years. He and his elder brother were from the well-to-do upper Northern Suburb and had enjoyed competitive driving in go-carts and hill-climb car clubs from a very young age. If I remember correctly, Steve's big brother drove a Lotus Elan at the time.

It was late Friday afternoon and getting dark, and it was just my brother Ted and I in the Monster heading up to Chatswood on, the then, new Roseville bridge.

For the previous year we had sped through the winding single-lane road that led to, and was the old Roseville bridge. Now that they had finally completed the new Roseville bridge we had a fast 6-lane highway to our friends place (3 lanes in either direction with a medium strip). The bridge, including the on and off ramp was about 3 to 4 miles long and angled down hill into the Roseville river gorge and up again in a fast sweeping bend – A corner that could be executed at over 80 mph. Which his how we usually did it.

This day however Ted was feeling a little more enthused than usually. We came blindingly fast down the incline preceding the sweeping bend, probably in access of 110 mph. There was traffic ahead traveling around 70 mph, or less. Fortunately the outside (fast) lane was clear and Ted after backing off a little, throttled up to power through the sweeping bend at better than 100.

And there it was, exactly what you would expect today going down the FDR, some clown on a cell phone cutting in front of you without indicating or even looking. Only there were no cell phones back then, and it wasn't the FDR, so you didn't expect that sort of thing, not at all.

Ted had moved into the centre lane to create a better line through the corner by moving into the outside lane as needed. The car in front seemed to be traveling at 70, with another car doing about 60 in the inside lane – the outside lane free. The car in front of us, now only half a car length away, as we gained on him extremely quickly, unexpectedly moved into the outside lane without increasing speed to reveal another slower car in front of him doing only 50.

There was nothing else Ted could do but brake hard. Smoke and rubber ripped from the tires as we began to see the rear of the car overtake the front. This wasn't a power drift – no amount of man-handling the steering wheel was going to save us. The Monster went round 3 times over the medium strip and into on coming traffic. I imagined us ploughing through the guard rail and off the bridge down 100s of feet into the gorge.

Suffice to say we didn't. Nor, by some miracle, did we collide with any of the oncoming cars. When the Monster finally came to a stop, stalled, it was facing in the other direction, on the other side of the road, seemingly undamaged.

The engine kicked back into life without too much coxing, and as we began to move it was evident that all 4 wheels were buckled badly. We limped home slowly it was the beginning of vet another car-less weekend.

I can only add that this was a loose of a lifetime and without serious consequence. I never got off this lightly again.