My corner of the car culture is somewhere in the 60’s. I found it on the wide out of the way boulevards of New York City.

Saturday night and the strips roared to the sound of tuned pipes challenged only by the blasting of tuned in AM rock-n-roll. The streets were full of cool cars but the muscle cars owned the nighttime streets. A circus of colors with streetlights illuminating the simonized metal of the not yet classic Pontiac GTO, Chevelle SS, Dodge Charger, Olds 442, Buick GS, and many other soon to be muscle car classics.

The burger and malt were the reigning king and queen of the drive-in food joints and cute car-hops were their handmaidens. Your best girl sat alongside of you and managed to talk, sip a strawberry  malt, and pop chewing gum. All at the same time! The rhythm of the pipe concerto emanating from the rows of parked muscle cars with engines turned permanently on set the mood. Hey, gas was 27 cents per gallon.

I drove a cool soon to be classic but certainly not a muscle car back then. A 1966 Ford Mustang convertible. Get this- I picked it up used, in mint condition, with 26,000 miles on it for the then tidy sum of $450.00. They were for sale all over the place and anyone like me who had a job stocking shelves could afford a used one.

Part of my car culture experience was virtual even then. Long before home computers and the internet. It was called a dream, and the dream was to own a Pontiac GTO. The dream never came true but the culture is still with me. I can’t help stopping to look when I see a restored muscle car go by and I can still hear them rumble every time I bite into a burger.