Pubs Chair comment: Steve was known as a “Chevy man” as evidenced by his last 2016 Camaro SS convertible. His first car however was a Ford in body if not soul. This article from September 2014. Steve passed in 2021.
MY FIRST CAR
By Steve Monroe
In the summer of 1964 after my second year in college I was working and had saved enough money to buy a used car. Up until then I was always stuck driving my Mother’s 1963 Mercury with slant back glass which was neat but not mine.
I got word that a teenager in another nearby town was ordered to sell his car or lose his driver’s license by the local law enforcement. I met him at this broken down garage and when he opened the door there was this flame red 1955 T-Bird which I liked right away. Then he opened the hood and there was this huge Chrysler 392 Hemi with four Stromberg 92 deuces. I was sold right then and he only wanted $1,100. I went home and told my Dad about it and he was not at all thrilled. In fact, he called it a bastard because it didn’t have a Ford engine. My parents did everything trying to talk me out of it. They even offered to pay the difference on a newer car. One was a 1962 390 Ford hardtop and another was a new Mercury Cougar. Well, I wanted the T-Bird so I went against their advice and bought it.
As you can imagine it was powerful and very fast but the darned thing burned a quart of oil every 1,000 miles and the motor mounts were not that solid. Thanks to my Dad and his connections with the small town Ford garage he had them rebuild the engine and install Dodge truck motor mounts to hold down the beast. The engine, installed in the Bird in a nearby Ohio town, was based on a January, 1958 issue of Hot Rod Magazine except mine didn’t have fuel injection although the 4 Stromberg’s were impressive in 1964. (A picture of the cover is attached)
I took the car to college that September majoring in Mechanical Engineering but the college did away with the program the next semester so I switched my major to Accounting which was a breeze and required a lot less study. I returned home after the spring semester, working all summer, dating a wonderful girl and going to the drag strip on Sundays. I was just a week or two away from going back to school when I got the dreaded “Greetings Letter” from Uncle Sam all because I switched majors, and my girl broke up with me because she said I loved my car more than her. I wondered why she kept singing “Stranger in the Night”.
As a draftee I was sent to Ft. Jackson, SC for processing. In September, 1966 it was the largest draft during the Vietnam War, and my luck, Ft. Jackson was full. As a result I was sent to Ft. Hood, Texas with two others from my area. Like a ping pong ball I was sent back to Ft. Jackson in November for Radio School and 12 weeks of “Did He Dum Dum Did He”. During our Christmas vacation so to speak I took the bus home and to my surprise my Dad had the T-Bird painted the original color of flame red. I drove the Bird back to Ft. Jackson until radio school was over and then back to Ft. Hood, Texas for teletype school. Finally finished with all of my schooling and assigned to a HHC in the First Armored Division where we commo guys spent most of our time in the motor pool tuning our radios and radio teletypes. We felt good in armor because Nam was infantry, however much to our disappointment, we were given orders to be the first infantry unit to be formed at Fort Hood. We were made the 198th Light Infantry Brigade and trained for six months before we were shipped to Nam on a troop ship out of Oakland CA. Nam was better than all the training at Ft. Hood 95% of the time but that other 5% was pure hell such as TET 1968,
I finally got home in August, 1968 from Vietnam and was anxious to drive the T-Bird again. My Dad had driven it on Sundays while I was in Nam and so he kept the cobwebs blown out of it. He always had a lead foot so I guess Tom and I got ours from him.
I worked until the spring semester started and returned to Marshall University to finish my BBA degree in Accounting. One night I took a drive in the Bird to see what was going on in the local hot rod hangouts. I drove through one and when I got back out on the street two guys came tearing about behind me in an Opel Kadett station wagon and for 4 traffic lights tried to get me to race them. At the 4th light I obliged them. It was in a residential area with three lanes on a one way street and no traffic. I was two blocks away and they weren’t even across the first intersection when I heard the sirens so I pulled over and got my license and registration out. The policeman pulled up behind me and came to my window and said, “95 mph in a 35 zone! I saw what happen and I probably would have done the same. Take it easy.” He left and was giving a ticket to the kids in the Opel when I last saw him.
I finally bought a new GTO and having two cars was a strain on my finances, so I put an ad in the local paper to sell the T-Bird and a guy was at my door before the paper came out. I still kick myself for selling it but I was still in college and wanted to get married so I had to make a sacrifice. The boy I sold it to removed the Hemi motor and sold it to a collector in Virginia. He said the collector restored it to original condition and it is now a show car. I’m over 70 now but I still have the need for speed. I just sold a 1965 FF Cobra with a built 302 ci and I just bought a new 2014 Z51 Stingray which is my 5th Corvette, three of which were Z06’s. If you ever run across a 55 T-Bird with the VIN number of P5H116377, that was my first car.