Well, no television viewing here. This is all muscle car. Many people see this car and assume that it is a Road Runner, nope. Tell them it is a 1971 Satellite Sebring and the usual response I get is “A what?!”. Usually I get reduced to explaining that it is a Road Runner body style with more comforts and a little less motor. It has the all the cues of a Road Runner but has all the stuff that makes it ride like a brand new Cadillac. The shifts are smooth and the ride is quiet and hassle free. It has a full bench seat (man I wish they would bring those things back in cars) and tons of room. It is a big car by today’s standards, but has a trunk that you could put a full vacation’s worth of luggage in, all the while still having a full size spare tire with matching rim (something else that today’s cars could use).
This car had only 65,000 original miles on it when I bought it. As a matter of fact, it still had the original 318 motor and transmission in it. Come to think of it, it was ALL original. It was one of those grandma-car-dream-deals. I am here to tell you they do exist, but are extremely rare and once in a lifetime. I made little to no modifications to this car throughout many miles of driving. The biggest ones were raising the rear-end (it sat way too low for a muscle car, covering up ¼ of the rear tires, which was common for cars back then). The only other change was to put Cherry Bomb glass packs on the exhaust. Thus the car went from a calm whir to a thump-thump-thump. Other than that, it stayed all original for another 5,000 miles (or so) until one day as some of my friends and I loaded up to make a trip to Chattanooga, the car made an eerie sound. First a loud racket and then a massive shaking of the entire vehicle which led to a yet louder thud and the motor shut down. Drew and Adam said it was one of the coolest things they had ever experienced, but the motor had blown up. In fact they took great pleasure in demonstrating the entire event to our friends. Unfortunately I had broke the crank in not one but two places and thrown a rod clean into the oil pan puncturing the pan and causing a liberal oil leak. (sigh)
Anyway, now several years later, I have gotten married, had one kid and fixing to have another. Thus the car was sold to my dad. This sale was made with the agreement that I would fix the motor at his expense, being reasonable of course. I have put in one motor to find out that it was locked up and have yet to get another one in. (sigh again) The car is on my projects list (a most expansive list it is). I actually look forward to getting the car running again and even look forward to doing the work if only I could find the time.
This is probably my favorite car that I have ever owned. I miss driving it terribly. But at least I know that it has gone to a good owner and will be taken care of.