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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