Today, it's about the old car; the '65 Barracuda that the boys and I have been fooling around with for the last several years.
The Barracuda was originally engineered as Plymouth's entry into the Mustang market. Oddly enough, it was introduced before the Mustang, though most people incorrectly assume it was a Johnny Come Lately answer to the Mustang.
Both the Mustang and the Barracuda were based on inexpensive compact cars; the Mustang was pretty much a Falcon chassis, while the Barracuda was based on the Valiant. Both the Falcon and the Valiant were solid, reliable, if unexciting little cars. Both were powered by a straight six engine, with a small V-8 as an option. The Barracuda, however, used Chrysler's 'Slant Six' engine, which allowed the engine to be placed lower to the ground, giving the car a better, lower center of gravity. The Barracuda also used Chrysler's 'Torsion Bar' front suspension, which was a much better setup than the coil springs on the Mustang. Combined with the uneven leaf spring rear suspension, the Barracuda could run rings around the Mustang in handling. Of course, the Mustang, with Ford's much deeper pockets behind it, had a much wider choice of engine/transmission power trains, and outsold the Barracuda 8-1.
The original Valiant based Barracuda soldiered on for three years, until it was replaced with an all new model in 1967, and finally the large, long 'E' body model that came out in 1970. With the great advances in the second and third generation models, the first, Valiant based cars quickly fell out of favor, and many were junked, or left to rust and rot (which they did very well).
The '65 that we have was originally a California car, which was kept by the original owner until some time in the late 1990's, when it was given to their grandson, who used it as a daily driver until early 2007. At that time the car was sold to a U-Haul shop owner in Las Fritas Arizona, who parked it on his lot and listed it on Ebay. That's where we came along.
Through the years, we've done mostly mechanical work on the car, things like a new exhaust, brakes, shocks, exhaust manifold, alternator, etc. And the body, which is what I call a '10 foot body' ('cause it looks good from 10 feet away), with it's cheap paint job, continued to get weatherworn and showed some signs of rust on the rear quarter panels.
Right now, the 'Cuda is getting it's body work done. The rear quarter panels are being repaired, along with the little rust/dings on the driver side door. After the body is repaired, new bumpers and a fresh coat of paint will freshen it up, and we expect many more years of fun at car shows and Sunday drives in it.
The work is being done by our local shop, and they're fitting it in between 'regular' jobs, so we don't expect to get the car back until it's time to go to Carlisle for the Chrysler Nationals in July. Going to be rough getting through the good weather without it, but we'll manage!

Browsing through my "Facebook" connections late last night, and came across a post from The Real Peter Tork page, referencing an interview Peter did with "Parade" magazine in anticipation of the upcoming Monkees tour. In it, the interviewer asked Peter what his favorite Monkees tune is. To nobody's surprise, he said that his favorite "hit" is Pleasant Valley Sunday, he's always favored that song, for the content as well as the performance. Peter also said that he is looking forward to doing "Shades Of Gray" on the new tour. Now that's an interesting comment, as the guys haven't performed that song since the last Davy-Micky-Peter tour a few years back. So my take is that we're going to get a slightly different set on this show than we had the last two years. Interesting, and I am so looking forward to seeing the show in Huntington NY on May 25. 

Speaking of shows, I need to post a few words of praise here for the show Colin Blunstone did at City Winery in NYC on Tuesday night. After an odd little opening act, Colin came out with a terrific band - the lead guitar player and drummer who normally play with the touring Zombies band, a young bass player, and a terrific keyboard player. He wasn't quite Rod Argent, but he acquitted himself very well on all of the songs.
Colin was on stage for a long time, close to two hours, and the set was terrific. Some tunes from his new album, old songs that he'd released as a solo artist, and a couple of Zombies songs as well. His voice was very strong, very impressive, he sounded even better than he did when we saw him last August, and he really interacted with the audience quite well. His range and power were very dynamic, and at the end of the set, I was really happy that we'd made the effort to see him. As I noted in my last post, I wasn't sure what he was going to do, but boy, he did a great set, and did it damn well!

Next week, I'll have some information on the 'conversion' of my new car. I've decided that since Chrysler wouldn't sell me a Barracuda, I'm going to 'make' my own. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't, at what you can get on the internet!

This week has been busy, I've spent it running all over the Metro area with my buddy Timothy from TMI Salt Pure, who's based out in Port Orchard, WA. Haven't had a lot of time to do anything much with cars or road food, but we did discuss a lot of good old Vintage Rock and Roll. Timothy was telling me of some of the performers he's seen lately out his way. Some good names, and a lot of folks he said were great, but that I really didn't know. Anyway, it got me thinking about how lucky we are here in the NYC area, with all the great venues we have - Theater at Westbury, Boulton Center, The Paramount, BB King's, Highline Ballroom, City Winery, all of the great College Venues - we are really blessed, because with so many different places, of all different sizes, we attract loads of great talent.

I've never sat down and listed all of the acts that I've seen through the years, but since I did that with all of the cars I've owned, and that was a pretty fun list, I think maybe I'll have to do that one of these days. Or, several of these days, as I'm sure there are way too many to remember at just one sitting. Still, seems like a worthwhile waste of time to me, so that's now on the to do list.

And speaking of 'to do', or maybe 'going to do', Karen and I are going to see Colin Blunstone, lead singer of the Zombies, on Tuesday night at City Winery in NYC. We've really enjoyed seeing The Zombies over the past few years, and Colin's voice is still quite strong and dynamic. As this will be his first ever solo tour, we're curious as to what he'll perform, and who'll back him up. Should be fun! Meantime, here's a clip of Colin, Rod Argent, and the rest of the current band doing "Tell Her No" from a 2013 show up in Washington State.

So it's Friday afternoon, about 5 pm, and I'm in the car, riding back to the hotel from finishing up a CPO Class up here in Watertown (AKA fast food & chain restaurant hell), and on the XM, I hear thump, thump, thump, thump, badda da badda da badda da badda da bump - and yeah, it's Dave Clark, pounding out the opening to "Bits and Pieces" on the drums.
What a terrific song! And, back in the day, some theaters asked the guys not to perform this tune, since all of the kids would stamp their feet along with the drums, and owners were afraid that all of the stomping might cause a balcony to collapse!
With another great lead vocal from the late Mike Smith, one of the great voices of rock and roll, here's the DC5 doing it!