It
looks like my 2014 Cruising Season has finally come to a close. I fired
up the F yesterday morning in the frosty, 27 degree early morning dawn
air for its final local cruise, to Lake Forest, IL. The big wedge motor
coughed and sputtered a bit until it fully warmed up, and ran great for its
quick 45 mile drive up to this northern suburb of Chicago. And Andy Mikonis
joined me there in his beautiful British Racing Green XK-E coupe. From there,
we hit a swap meet a few miles away – but no good Mopar stuff to be
found.
So
this wraps up the F’s summer – 10,253 nearly trouble-free miles driven – no
air, but for the wind in my face; no radio, but for the big bass music of the
thundering 413 crossram; and lots of smiles – both mine, as well as lots of
new friends the 300 met on the road. The great Club Meets – Mystic, Kokomo and
White Sands. Back to the 50s in St. Paul with almost 12,000 pre-1964½
vehicles, and mine seemingly the only Letter Car out of all of these – the F
found its beauty shot into “Old Cars Weekly’s” photo coverage of that
happening. And Iola and Hickory Corners and local cruise-ins. A huge thanks to
my savior Spanky Cox when my generator gave it up as I was heading southbound
in Illinois, to meet up with John Begian, for our wonderful road trip to New
Mexico. A couple hours later, and my generator was good as new. We spent our
time waiting at a local Effingham restoration shop – friends of Spanky’s – all
Mopar muscle – Petty ’64 Plymouth and Cotton Owens ’66 Charger tribute cars,
the only factory-built ’64 Dodge max wedge convertible, a Cuda funny car, and
several other Chargers, Plymouths, Dodges in various states of resto – what a
treat! And all the cars at Spanky’s place – yet another treat!
By
my calculations, the F averaged 12.2 mpg over all these miles driven this
year. On our recent drive to New Mexico, generally cruising at about 72-75
mph, the F averaged 11.909 mpg on this 3188 mile trip. I’m not sure what John
averaged in his “Best of Meet” G ragtop. Fortunately, premium fuel was
considerably cheaper once I got away from this Chicago metro area. $936 in
fuel cost over 268 gallons fed through those Carter AFBs, calculates to just
under $3.50/gallon. When I left home, my local Shell station was charging
$4.54/gallon. When cruising at under 70 mph, the F averaged over 13
mpg.
And,
coincidentally, yesterday one of our local suburban papers – The Daily Herald
– featured the F in its AutoSunday section. Photos in tis article are from the
Northern IL Region WPC Club’s season kick-off show, back in mid-April this
year. Here’s the link to the article -
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20141103/entlife/141109772/
300ly,
Noel
Hastalis
300F
Coupe
Burr
Ridge, IL 
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