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#1: Tom O'Connell (sensei69) on Sep 13, 2012

I do

Very nice puzzle, and I am sorry to admit that I do also. Wasn't old enough to drive them legally, but my dad would take me for "driving lessons" on Saturday mornings at some unused lot. Really, I think it was an excuse to get away from my mom!

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Thx Tom,kjh,and David. Don't be sorry kjh,it was fun to shift gears and see if you could burn rubber in 2nd and 3rd gear. I had a beautiful 1970 Ford Maverick that i hopped up,but it only had a straight 6 engine. That didn't stop me from racing everything and anything. I once street raced a 67 Camaro,he was just nudging ahead of me,so i threw it back in first gear,and bolted ahead for a split second until i heard the transmission blow up. Dumb punk i was,lol.:)

Loved your puzzle, but I'm afraid Hurst shifters are not a girl thing. Unless you are Danika Patrick.

Thx Norma,oh are girls more into Muncie shifters,lol. Danika loves them for sure. I bet the Force girls love them as well.:)

No, but we had a 1981 Chevy Malibu with a 3-speed Saginaw manual transmission that 15 years later we limped under its own steam with 400,000 km (250,000 miles) on it to the junkyard. There had been a tiny notice in the newspaper that these cars would be shipped by quota to dealers across Canada and sold at a fixed price of $6,200 in Ottawa, which was about half the going rate then. Dealers sold the first offering of 7,000 cars in the first afternoon. There was a choice of 6 exterior and 2 interior colours, with no guarantee we'd get what we asked for. We called our colour "tacky Iraqi khaki." Exerpted from Wikipedia:

In 1981, General Motors of Canada produced a special order of 25,500 4-door Malibu sedans for Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government. The deal was reportedly worth well over $100 million to GMCL. These special-order Malibus carried the unusual combination of GM's lowest-power carburated V6, the 110 hp (82 kW) 229-cubic-inch (3.8 L) engine mated to 3-speed transmission with a unique on-the-floor stick shifter. All of the cars were equipped with air conditioning, heavy duty cooling systems, AM/FM cassette decks, front bench seats, 200 km/h speedometers, tough tweed and vinyl upholstery and 14-inch (360 mm) stamped steel wheels with "baby moon" hubcaps.

However, only 13,000 units ever made it to Iraq, with the majority of the cars becoming taxis in Baghdad. With the remaining balance of about 12,500 additional Malibus either sitting on a dock in Halifax or awaiting port shipment in Oshawa, where they were built, the Iraqis suddenly cancelled the order in 1982. Excuses reportedly included various "quality concerns", including the inability of the local drivers to shift the finicky Saginaw manual transmission. Later speculation was that the Iraqis were actually forced to back out for financial reasons, due to their escalating hostilities with Iran requiring the immediate diversion of funds to support the Iraqi war effort ... in the end, the orphaned "Iraqi Taxi" Malibus were all sold to the Canadian public at the greatly reduced price of about C$6,800. Over the years, they have acquired a low-key 'celebrity' status, sometimes being colloquially referred to as "Iraqibu".

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Cool story Lollipop.i remember this and always wanted one of those Malibus. I loved that body style,and the bench seat with a four on the floor i thought was cool.:)

Lol John.:)

Thx Tom,sorry about fooling you,lol.:)

tom, the fact that your '74 barracuda was an automatic made my stomach hurt.

Rofl David,me too but i didn't want to say it. I've been to Moparfest a couple of times,and you wouldn't believe how many gorgeous Chargers,Challengers,and Cudas were automatics. Some with 440 six packs,and even some with 426 Hemi's. Disheartning. However,apparently the automatics,were almost as fast,depending on the driver.:)

it definitely depends on the driver. i was expressing my displeasure with a friend in high school who bought an automatic Mustang GT "with performance chip". ended up in a 1000 foot drag race with him in his car and me in a borrowed manual, sub-90hp hatchback. had him by a length and a half. he was gaining fast...was lucky i didn't say quarter mile :)

That's funny David,but sad at the same time.lol.:)

The fact that is was a '74 and not a '72 hurt, but I was 16 in 1976 and it was my first car...

Still a very cool first car Tom.:)

agreed

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BAD@$$ car Bill!

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