1965 Flashback

["Steve Ham" <300L@xxxx>]

During the fall of 1965, a few weeks after acquiring the family's 300L, my dad suggested that we take an after-dinner ride in the 300. Mom was not invited, so I immediately assumed, ?OK, here it comes- the big talk about the birds and the bees?. I was sixteen years old. We got into the car; Dad drove. He suggested we head out to the turnpike and see how the 300 ran at higher speeds. The Florida Turnpike was brand-new and the first ?big road? in south Florida. We entered at the hwy 84 entrance headed north and rode in silence for a quite long time before a conversation about horsepower and gear ratios came up. Gradually our speed increased to about eighty as we passed Pompano Beach. There had been virtually no traffic for several minutes when he leaned toward me and said, ?Never try this yourself, but I am an experienced driver?. Then the Carter carburetor bellowed fromits full open throttle for many, many seconds and the speedometer needle headed on around. From the passengers seat in the 300L the speedometer is distorted but at that moment it looked a few notches beyond pegged. The 300Lspeedometer only reads to 120, but we covered at lot of real estate in a hurry because the turnpike?s temporary end in Vero Beach came up before wewere through with the high speed testing. We were able to make a U-turn in the Service Plaza so we headed south, this time we me driving. Looking back on it now, I suspect that the talk about sex got redirected to cars; a subject we were both more comfortable discussing. Our southbound trip was less eventful, but I was able to push 90 a few times. In retrospect, he gave me a driver?s education that night, that has probably saved my life more than once over the years. We exited the turnpike at the Broward exit and the toll collector said, ?You only traveled one exit?? ?Yes, it was just a little pleasure drive?. Pleasure drive indeed, it was probably the best spent thirty cents of my life.
Steve Ham